Abstract
Keywords- Diagnostics, Diagnostic standards, Bosch Diagnostic Solution, BDS
The increasing complexity and networking in automotive systems makes diagnostics in driving mode as well as in workshops more and more ambitious. In recent years service diagnostic solutions could not keep pace with the development of vehicle functions and the number of vehicle variants. To revise this situation a fundamental change of mind set in diagnostics is necessary. The new paradigm has to be that development of diagnostics is considered equitable to development of components, systems and functions already in early phases of product development. But usually the lack of available time prevents an early consideration of diagnostics in development. To overcome these restrictions efficient processes and tool support are needed to represent the system and diagnostic knowledge of developers in a way that can be used in production and service. The today penetrating standards to describe and apply diagnostic data (ODX et al.) are a first and appropriate step into this direction. The consequent next step is the enhancement of the existing standards by a formalized language to describe diagnostic and functional sequences for application in production and service. Such a standardized test language opens an efficient information channel for diagnostic content from development to production and service. Diagnostic functions for service that are already verified and validated during development phase can be easily integrated into diagnostic testers in production and service without effort for re-implementation. Also a re-use of modular elements of diagnostic sequences over different vehicle models is possible.
This state of information flow without gaps between development, production and service can only be achieved under the prerequisites that the whole diagnostic process is set up as an integrated process chain with adequate and efficient support by software tools for each single step. Therefore new solutions are required especially for diagnostic development purposes.
BDS - Bosch Diagnostic Solution is a new integrated process- and tool chain covering diagnostic development and diagnostic deployment to satisfy the mentioned requirements. The first step of diagnostic development is diagnostic analysis of new systems or of system variants. The diagnostic capability is analysed and assessed and diagnostic gaps are identified. The following steps are the design of diagnostic functions and diagnostic architecture as well as the tool-supported development of functions to be used in the diagnostic tester. The interface between development and production or service is the creation of sequences e.g. for usage in guided trouble shooting. In this context it is especially necessary that the developer has the possibility to efficiently verify and validate the diagnostic functions on the "target platform" (diagnostic tester) already during function development.
The solution is completed by the elements authoring system, runtime system, communication hardware and measurement devices. The backbone of the solution are the latest state-of-theart standards to enable efficient generation and use of diagnostics.