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The application of Model-Based Design (MBD) methodology to software development for automotive Electronics Control Units (ECUs) cannot be fully realized without auto-code generation. Auto-code generation does not lend itself directly to projects where carry-over designs and legacy code have to be utilized due to either budgetary limitations or customer requirements. In fact, the majority of existing ECUs still contain only manually-written embedded software and many projects only involve requirement changes and/or added functions. In this case, it is not practical to discontinue the usage of legacy code and create a full model for the purpose of auto-code generation. In this paper, we describe a methodology in which auto-code generation approach is leveraged by creating MATLAB® models just for new features and/or change requests.

The ever-increasing complexity and cost of automotive electrical systems are driving the change in automotive electronics development from traditional approaches to model-based methodology and processes. In this paper, we present an effective model-based development process particularly suitable for dealing with changes to existing designs, or “feature change” types of projects, in which the design and implementation procedures are often imposed by constraints due to the mandatory adoptions of legacy code and carryover designs. The new process herein involves creating “executable” requirements and functional models, generating test scenarios and/or cases, using the test cases for clarifying customer requirement specifications, using the clarified test cases for testing at various levels, and verifying the hardware-in-the-loop test results captured from the proprietary automatic test equipment.