KORTRIJK, Belgium, 4 Feb. 2009Barco for the second consecutive time won the Silver ITEA Achievement Award for its contribution to an ITEA (Information Technology for European Advancement) project. This year, Barco participated in the winning MARTES software engineering project, which is developing a standard, model-based approach to real-time embedded systems in an era of digital convergence.
The MARTES methodology addresses business risks, new system domains and the increasing complexity of embedded systems in order to boost productivity. MARTES involves partners from Belgium, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. Barco's approach enables interoperability between different software engineering and development tools. This breakthrough will support small European tool providers in expanding the use of their dedicated tools and their customer base – a particular target of the ITEA 2 program.
"We are proud that our continued effort, research and quality in the field of embedded software methodology are being acknowledged by ITEA," says Jean-Christophe Monfret, Barco's director of product management avionics. "With this new ITEA Silver Achievement Award, we show our continued dedication to technological advancement, quality, and increased effort to streamline and shorten our software development cycles. As was the case with last year's winning AGILE project, MARTES fits perfectly into our strategy to optimize our software development cycle for the aerospace industry. In addition, it will bring significant benefits to customers using our Open System Platforms."
Besides Barco, Belgian laureates also include the DistriNet research group, which is part of the Department of Computer Science of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Through this consortium, it was proven that the MARTES approach resulted in an innovative integrated process that helps to reduce cost and deployment time, while enhancing performance and other life-cycle aspects, Barco officials say.
The work done within the MARTES project was supported by IWT-Vlaanderen, which is the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders. IWT-Vlaanderen comes under the auspices of the Flemish Minister of Economics, Entrepreneurship, Science, Innovation, and Foreign Trade. As a regional public institution, it stimulates innovation through research and development and through the dissemination of technological know-how in Flanders.
More information about MARTES can be found on the MARTES project site at www.martes-itea.org and the ITEA website at www.itea2.org.
