Abstract
Keywords
Distributed systems, automotive electronics, OEM Supplier, development process, re-use
Abstract
The ever-increasing importance of distributed, embedded systems for future generations of automobiles is unquestioned, yet several problems related to their development are unsolved. The automotive industry is characterized by two particularities, which have to be taken into account when devising new methods for the development of distributed systems: (1) the collaborative development of systems by an OEM and a multitude of suppliers, (2) software and hardware re-use between model ranges. Before going into detail with the solution approach, this paper tries to identify the challenges in more detail, in order to obtain clear requirements.
The collaboration between an OEM and suppliers of different tiers poses several issues to be addressed. The knowledge of the intended system function and of the requirements and the implementation of subsystems are distributed to different organizations. Hence, a development process has to be devised that ensures that each organization participating in the development possesses exactly the information needed to deliver the assigned part of the project. On the other hand information hiding is an imperative. Information that constitutes a competitive advantage but is not needed by other project participants must be hidden, e.g., by the use of black box models.
The re-use of system parts calls for the separation of hardware and functional models. The functional model, i.e., the functions to be executed by the distributed system, is primarily independent of a specific car model and can be re-used in different model ranges. The hardware model on the other hand, i.e., the concrete number of ECUs and their properties in a certain car, vary between model ranges. It is decisive for a useful development process to allow the separate development of the functional model and the hardware model. At the same time the process must support the mapping of the functions to a concrete hardware architecture.
As theoretical background DECOMSYS proposes the so-called information domain model to tackle both problem areas at the same time. Each piece of information in a development process belongs to a certain information domain. In order to be applied to real projects the information domain model must be realized in a concise process description and a tool set implementing the necessary information domains and contracts. The DECOMSYS::DESIGNTOOLS suite, for example, currently supports the developer by facilitating autonomous design of the information domains and the re-use of the functional model. Future versions of the tool suite are planned that will incorporate a collaborative development process of an OEM and several suppliers.