TABLE OF CONTENTS Reverse engineering may be seen as an unusual application of the art and science of engineering, but it has become a fact of daily life. It could be applied to rectify deficiencies in existing items or to extend their capabilities. In the early 1980s, it was used by the General Motors Corporation to maintain a competitive advantage over Ford Motor Company products (and vice versa). Furthermore, reverse engineering is used by major military powers on the equipment they can acquire from their antagonists. Sometimes, these military powers employ reverse engineering to provide spare parts and maintenance support to smaller powers that are no longer on friendly terms with the manufacturers of their existing weapon systems [1].
Broadly speaking, the business of reverse engineering does not differ greatly from that of detective work in a criminal investigation or from conducting intelligence operations for military. Currently, reverse engineering is practiced increasingly in industry at large because it offers many benefits, including reducing design and development costs and maintaining highperformance manufacturing capabilities [2]. It can also be used as an effective stopgap measure for improving system productivity until the resources required for full modernization are within reach. In general, it may be said that reverse engineering is directed at modernizing single-system elements, rather than total systems, for the purpose of maintaining or increasing system productivity.
This chapter presents different aspects of reverse engineering.
This section presents the following selective terms and definitions directly or indirectly...
