Software and Systems (SAS)

The Division of Software and Systems is part of the Department of Computer and Information Science. The division conducts research and education in software engineering and computer systems.

A person sits in front of a computer screen and handles a floor robot Photo credit Jonas Järmen Research and education are conducted in the following areas:

Software Engineering
Programming Models and Environments
Software and System Modelling and Simulation
System Software
Embedded/Cyberphysical Software/Hardware Systems
Computer Systems Engineering
Real-Time Systems and System Dependability
Parallel and Distributed Software and Systems
Software and System Verification and Testing

Research

The research activities covers both basic research and projects in cooperation with industry - projects are or have been conducted in cooperation with ABB Robotics, ABB Industrial Systems, Ericsson Softlab AB, Ericsson Radio Systems, Ericsson Telecom, SKF, Saab, Saab Dynamics, Saab Combitech and several other companies.

Hands on laptop keyboard, a circuit board in the background Photo credit Jonas Järmen
In addition, the research activities include several long-term open-source system development efforts, such as the OpenModelica framework for object-oriented equation-based modeling and simulation of cyberphysical systems, and the SkePU high-level programming framework for heterogeneous parallel systems.

Nine full professors, eight associate/assistant professors and several postdocs are involved in the research together with about 25 graduate students.

Students listening to a teacher pointing to an example at a big screen. Photo credit Jonas Järmen

The SaS Seminars is a permanent series of open seminars with topics related to research at the division.

Research is conducted in three laboratories

Embedded Systems (ESLAB)
Codesign and design for testability of embedded/cyberphysical hardware/software systems and formal methods for embedded systems.

Programming Environments (PELAB)
Software engineering tools and architectures, large-scale software engineering, model-based software engineering, programming languages and systems, including compilers, debuggers, testing tools, and programming tools for parallel, distributed and real-time systems.

Real Time Systems (RTSLAB)
Dependable systems and networks, including reliability, safety and security, resource efficiency with respect to computation capacity, memory, bandwidth and energy.

Education

The division accounts for a significant share of the department's comprehensive undergraduate and master-level education activities, operating about 70 undergraduate/master-level courses per year as well as providing final-thesis supervision. Group of students working on computers..

Group of students working on computers..

Jonas Järmen

The undergraduate teaching activities are jointly carried out by the researchers and by the UPP education group for programming and programming didactics, which consists of about ten full-time university teachers and many teaching assistants.

Doctoral studies are offered in the field of Computer Science.

News at SAS

News and major articles

Woman sitting at desk with flowers and laptop during dissertation

New doctor in Computer Science: Klervie Toczé

On October 4, Klervie Toczé, Dept of Computer and Information Science, defended her thesis on the use of computing resources and sustainability in edge computing. Now she has moved to Amsterdam for a postdoc in sustainable urban gardening.

A part of the supercomputer that glows red.

AI may boost society's cybersecurity

The race between hackers trying to crack systems vital to the functioning of society and cybersecurity experts is constantly ongoing. LiU-researchers will now develop AI that can detect hacker attacks and take action before any damage is done.

Aseel Berglund researches movement at work.

Game at work – for your health

Humans are hunters and gatherers. But in today’s modern society, we are sitting more than ever, which is bad for our Stone Age body. Researchers Aseel and Erik Berglund want to change this with the help of computer games at work.

Research at SAS

Resilient Information and Control Systems (RICS)

Relying on service continuity for societal functions starts by understanding the complex socio-technical systems that must operate to deliver electricity, water, heat and other critical services to society.

Image illustrating computer programming with a number of different symbols.

Adaptive Software for the Heterogenous Edge-Cloud-Continuum - ASTECC

ASTECC is a 5-year cooperative research project in software systems at the Department of Computer and Information Science. It is funded by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF).

robot dog Spot, drone, small helicopter, operator

WASP at Department of Computer and Information Science (IDA)

WASP, Wallenberg AI autonomous systems and software program, is the largest individual research investment in Sweden in modern times. One of the WASP research environments at LiU is located at the Department of Computer and Information Science.

Latest publications

2025

Junqiang Jiang, Zhifang Sun, Ruiqi Lu, Li Pan, Zebo Peng (2025) Real Relative Encoding Genetic Algorithm for Workflow Scheduling in Heterogeneous Distributed Computing Systems IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, Vol. 36 (Article in journal)

Continue to DOI

Junqiang Jiang, Shengjie Jin, Zhifang Sun, Jinxue Duan, Lizhi Liu, Li Pan, Zebo Peng (2025) An Efficient Approach for Improving Message Acceptance Rate and Link Utilization in Time-Sensitive Networking ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems, Vol. 24, p. 1-25 (Article in journal)

Continue to DOI

2024

Zeeshan Afzal, Mathias Ekstedt, Nils Mueller, Preetam Mukherjee (2024) Security Challenges in Energy Flexibility Markets: A Threat Modelling-Based Cyber-Security Analysis Electronics, Vol. 13, Article 4522 (Article in journal)

Continue to DOI

Máté Földiák (2024) Probabilistic Graph Queries for Design Space Exploration Under Uncertainty ACM/IEEE 27TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MODEL DRIVEN ENGINEERING LANGUAGES AND SYSTEMS: COMPANION PROCEEDINGS, MODELS 2024, p. 142-148 (Conference paper)

Continue to DOI

Yujing Yang, Boqi Chen, Kua Chen, Gunter Mussbacher, Daniel Varro (2024) Multi-step Iterative Automated Domain Modeling with Large Language Models ACM/IEEE 27TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MODEL DRIVEN ENGINEERING LANGUAGES AND SYSTEMS: COMPANION PROCEEDINGS, MODELS 2024, p. 587-595 (Conference paper)

Continue to DOI

Kua Chen, Boqi Chen, Yujing Yang, Gunter Mussbacher, Daniel Varro (2024) Embedding-based Automated Assessment of Domain Models ACM/IEEE 27TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MODEL DRIVEN ENGINEERING LANGUAGES AND SYSTEMS: COMPANION PROCEEDINGS, MODELS 2024, p. 87-94 (Conference paper)

Continue to DOI

Willem Meijer (2024) Contract-based Validation of Conceptual Design Bugs for Engineering Complex Machine Learning Software ACM/IEEE 27TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MODEL DRIVEN ENGINEERING LANGUAGES AND SYSTEMS: COMPANION PROCEEDINGS, MODELS 2024, p. 155-161 (Conference paper)

Continue to DOI

Filip Strömbäck, Daniel Varro (2024) Active DSU: Dynamic Software Updates for Active Functions PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2024 ACM SIGPLAN INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON NEW IDEAS, NEW PARADIGMS, AND REFLECTIONS ON PROGRAMMING AND SOFTWARE, ONWARD! 2024, p. 26-37 (Conference paper)

Continue to DOI

Zebo Peng (2024) Security-Aware Design of Cyber-Physical Systems for Control over the Cloud 2024 INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM OF ELECTRONICS DESIGN AUTOMATION, ISEDA 2024, p. 786-786 (Conference paper)

Continue to DOI

Zhifang Sun, Shengjie Jin, Jinxue Duan, Jianxia Jiang, Zebo Peng (2024) A Relative-Priority Encoding Genetic Algorithm for Integrated Mapping and Scheduling Optimization 2024 INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM OF ELECTRONICS DESIGN AUTOMATION, ISEDA 2024, p. 770-771 (Conference paper)

Continue to DOI