Abstract
KEYWORDS - Bus systems, safety relevant electronic systems, drive-by-wire, architecture of automotive electronic systems, distributed systems
During the last decades, the complexity in automotive communication media increased sharply. A solution to this problem might be a network based approach with a simple physical layer, which provides the necessary features like fault tolerance through its architecture. In this paper a network based approach to automotive communication media is analyzed with a focus on timing issues. Using queuing theory it is shown that a well designed system with this approach can fulfill the timing criteria of safety relevant automotive applications to a satisfactory degree.