Towards a metrics suite for the complexity analysis of LabVIEW systems models

LabVIEW is a popular commercial modeling tool that is often used in systems engineering. LabVIEW also includes a special programming language developed for engineers to help them support the automation of computer-aided systems. Although LabVIEW is widely used in various fields (e.g., industrial design, academic research, and engineering education), there has not been much attention given to the systems models built in LabVIEW (e.g., support for analyzing the complexity of systems models). Our previous work in surveying engineers who use LabVIEW suggests that systems engineers are deeply concerned about the complexity of the LabVIEW systems models that they create. To address the need for additional support in understanding the complexity of LabVIEW systems models, we introduce in this paper a metrics suite to assist end-users in characterizing the complexities of LabVIEW systems models from different aspects. We theoretically validated the metrics using Weyuker's validation. In addition, our metric suite was applied to 10 LabVIEW models mined from GitHub to empirically evaluate their suitability to support the description of systems model complexities. Our research is one of the first efforts to address the complexity analysis of LabVIEW systems models through a software metrics approach.(c) 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.