Abstract
Keywords: partitioning, software allocation, real-time network
Due to increasing electronically controlled functionality in cars as engine control, transmission control and dynamic control and the rising demand for computational resources, recent development focuses on dividing software and hardware placing an operating system in-between. In future systems like X-by-wire will not only increase the number of electronic control units (ECUs) but also the demand for reliability and availability. Using an operating system on standardized hardware and allocating software as applications enables engineers to concentrate on programming the functionality and adapting existing software already tested to different solutions. Moreover such a standard in automotive industry makes it possible to integrate hardware and software of different suppliers in one electronic system. Another problem is space limitations in vehicles. In current luxury cars there are already more than 70 ECUs used connected via several buses. In case of standardized hardware and software solutions it would be possible to allocate more software on more powerful ECUs in order to reduce its number. Nowadays this will not be possible due to the fact that suppliers sell hardware as black boxes fulfilling only the tasks ordered. For this reason the so-called AUTOSAR standard was introduced.