Architecture trace diagrams for cyber-physical systems

Developing a suitable architecture for Cyber-Physical Systems requires architects to consider all necessary areas - software, hardware, networking - and have an understanding of how information is passed between the different components. Errors in some part might be caused by problems in another, thus a deeper understanding of the information flow is necessary to identify possible error sources. We present how Architecture Trace Diagrams (ATDs) can be used to model the architecture and information flow of Cyber-Physical Systems. In a study with several developers, we show that participants using ATDs achieved better results in terms of correctness, speed, and participant self-efficacy in comparison to UML diagrams.