Description To develop a tool suite for the development of embedded systems for the Aerospace, Defence and other European industries, that will reduce the time for designing new systems and marketing new productsEmbedded systems applications are one of the key drivers for innovations within the European Aerospace and Defence industries. Within the last ten years the increasing need for timely and dependable execution and communication support has led to the establishment of comparatively efficient real-time and dependable software infrastructures. They have been integrated in protocol stacks, operating systems kernels, middleware systems and some software development methods. However, real-time and dependable software development is still complex and increased demands for greater functionality and dependability will make it even more so. Model driven application development utilising software components provides a wealth of solutions to permit higher abstractions, while reducing the implementation complexity. Current model based tools, modelling languages and methodologies for real-time and dependable systems lack full support for required features of dependability, reliability, security, performance and other qualities that are critical for the Aerospace and Defence domains.The MADES project is applying a holistic approach in researching new tools and technologies that support design, validation, simulation, and code generation, while providing better support for component reuse. The new integrated tool suite is expected to reduce the time to develop products by 20% and deliver a 10% reduction in costs for maintaining and updating existing products, which will be important advantages for European industry competing in global markets.