OSEKtime: A Dependable Real-Time Fault-Tolerant Operating System and Communication Layer as an Enabling Technology for By-Wire Applications 2000-01-1051

The new generation of drive-by-wire systems currently under development has demanding requirements on the electronic architecture. Functions such as brake-by-wire or steer-by-wire require continued operation even in the presence of component failures. The electronic architecture must therefore provide fault-tolerance and real-time response. This in turn requires the operating system and the communication layer to be predictable, dependable and composable. It is well known that this properties are best supported by a time-triggered approach. A consortium consisting of German and French car manufacturers and suppliers, which aims at becoming a working group within the OSEK/VDX initiative, the OSEKtime consortium, is currently defining a specification for a time-triggered operating system and a fault-tolerant communication layer.¹ The operating system and the communication layer are based on applicable interfaces of the OSEK/VDX standard. This paper describes the basic concepts of these two service layers and the electronic architecture.