Search Results

Software-in-the-Loop (SiL) test environments are the ideal virtual platforms for enabling continuous-development, -integration, -testing -delivery or -deployment commonly referred as Continuous-X (CX) of the complex functionalities in the current automotive industry. This trend especially is contributed by several factors such as the industry wide standardization of the model exchange formats, interfaces as well as architecture definitions. The approach of frontloading software testing with SiL test environments is predominantly advocated as well as already adopted by various Automotive OEMs, thereby the demand for innovating applicable methods is increasing. However, prominent usage of the existing monolithic architecture for interaction of various elements in the SiL environment, without regarding the separation between functional and non-functional test scope, is reducing the usability and thus limiting significantly the cost saving potential of CX with SiL.

This paper describes the concept of the Diagnostic System Management DSM which introduces an improved object-oriented software architecture in order to meet the high performance and reliability requirements of automotive On-Board Diagnostic Systems (OBD). DSM handles standard tasks and offers services to integrate diagnostic and control functions. This architecture enables the flexible composition of system-independent, reusable function implementations. Hence a distributed software development and software sharing are supported. The module DSM consists of a Fault Code Memory, an Inhibit Handler, a Validator and a Function Scheduler. Special care has been taken to achieve robustness against EMI effects. Bosch will use DSM in the future powertrain control systems.

A new physical layer for automobile class B communication networks is based on simple galvanic connections. Only ten passive external components per node are needed to perform reliable data transmission inside the hostile car environment. Every single fault related to the bus will be detected and diagnosed by every node, where a software controlled logic assures continuous data flow.

Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) requirements and the effort to fulfill them are increasing steadily in automotive applications. This paper demonstrates the usage of virtual prototyping to efficiently investigate the EMC behavior of a gasoline direct injection system. While the system worked functionally as designed, tests indicated that current and especially future client-specific EMC limits could not be met. The goal of this investigation was to identify and eliminate the cause of EMC emissions using a virtual software prototype including the controller ASIC, boost converter, pi filter, injection valves and wire harness. Applying virtual prototyping techniques it was possible to capture the motor control system in a simulation model which reproduced EMC measurements in the frequency ranges of interest.

In order to master the increasing complexity of electrical/electronic (E/E) systems in vehicles, E/E architecture design has become an established discipline. The task of the E/E architecture design is to come up with solutions to challenging and often contradictory requirements such as reduced cost and increased flexibility / scalability. One way to optimize the E/E architecture in terms of cost (electronics & wiring harness) is to integrate functions. This can be done by either combining functions from multiple ECUs into a single ECU or by introducing Domain Control Units. Domain Control Units provide the main software functionality for a vehicle domain, while relegating the basic functions of actuator control to connected intelligent actuators. Depending on the different market segments (low price, volume and premium) and the different vehicle domains, the actual usage of Domain Control Units can be quite different and sometimes questionable.

The development of future automotive electronic systems requires new concepts in the software architecture, development methodology and information exchange. At Bosch an XML and MSR based technology is applied to achieve a consistent information handling throughout the entire software development process. This approach enables the tool independent exchange of information and documentation between the involved development partners. This paper presents the software architecture, the specification of software components in XML, the process steps, an example and an exchange scenario with an external development partner.

Car Periphery Supervision (CPS) systems comprise a family of automotive systems that are based on sensors installed around the vehicle to monitor its environment. The measurement and evaluation of sensor data enables the realization of several kinds of higher level applications such as parking assistance or blind spot detection. Although a lot of similarity can be identified among CPS applications, these systems are traditionally built separately. Usually, each single system is built with its own electronic control unit, and it is likely that the application software is bound to the controller's hardware. Current systems engineering therefore often leads to a large number of inflexible, dedicated systems in the automobile that together consume a large amount of power, weight, and installation space and produce high manufacturing and maintenance costs.

A major trend in modern vehicle control is the increase of complexity and interaction of formerly autonomous systems. In order to manage the resulting network of more and more integrated (sub)systems Bosch has developed an open architecture called CARTRONIC for structuring the entire vehicle control system. Structuring the system in functionally independent components improves modular software development and allows the integration of new elements such as integrated starter/generator and the implementation of advanced control concepts as drive train management. This approach leads to an open structure on a high level for the design of advanced vehicle control systems. The paper describes the integration of the spark-ignition (SI) engine management system (EMS) into a CARTRONIC conform vehicle coordination requiring a new standard interface between the vehicle coordination and the EMS level.

The demand for more security, economy, and comfort as well as for a reduced environmental impact increases the importance of electronic components for vehicles. The development of such systems is determined by the requirement of an improved functionality and co-requisite the demand for limited costs. In order to fulfil these demands and taking into consideration the increase of complexity and the melting together to a car wide web, Bosch is developing a structuring concept called CARTRONIC®. This concept is supposed to be open and neutral regarding automotive manufactures and suppliers. The analysis of vehicle control systems via this method is based on formal rules for structuring and modelling. The function-related aspect of CARTRONIC® was represented already at the SAE'98 World Congress. Furthermore the safety-related feature was introduced in more detail at the SAE'99 World Congress. The result of the analysis is an object structure of logical components with defined interfaces.

In the last decades the development of Diesel engines has made substantial progress. New, powerful and scalable injection systems have been introduced. In consequence Diesel systems are continuously gaining market share in many places of the world. Advanced direct injection engines with systems like the electronically controlled distributer pump, the unit injection system and of course the common rail system are replacing the chamber engines in all automotive applications. This is all unthinkable without the electronic management of these injection systems by means of Electronic Diesel Control units (EDC). The following presentation describes the status and some future trend of technology of EDCs with particular emphasis on functional and on software development. It also outlines the challenge of global automotive industry that requires global development and application services from its tier 1 suppliers.

Automotive product lines promote reuse of software artifacts such as architectures, designs and implementations. System architectures, and especially software architectures, are difficult to create due to the need to support variations. Traditional approaches emphasize the identification and description of generic components, which makes it difficult to support variations among products. The paper proposes an approach for transforming a software architecture to product design through using patterns in a four-way refinement and evolution process. The paper investigates how patterns may be used to verify the conceptual integrity in the view integration procedure to support software sharing in an open automotive system.

Time Triggered CAN (TTCAN) is an extension of the well-known CAN protocol, introducing to CAN networks time triggered communication and a system wide global network time with high precision. Time Triggered CAN has been accepted as international standard ISOCD11898-4. The time triggered communication is built upon the unchanged standard CAN protocol. This allows a software implementation of the time triggered function of TTCAN, based on existing CAN ICs. The high precision global time however requires a hardware implementation. A hardware implementation also offers additional functions like time mark interrupts, a stopwatch, and a synchronization to external events, all independent of software latency times. The TTCAN testchip (TTCAN_TC) is a standalone TTCAN controller and has been produced as a solution to the hen/egg problem of hardware availability versus tool support and research.

Many software functions currently available in the engine control units have been developed for several years (decades in some cases), reengineered or adapted due to new requirements, what may add to their inherent complexity an unnecessary complication. This paper deals with the study and implementation of a software reengineering strategy for the embedded domain, which is in transfer from research department to product development, here applied to improve maintainability of flex fuel functions. The strategy uses the SCODE “Essential Analysis”, an approach for the embedded system domain. The method allows to reduce the system complexity to the unavoidable inherent problem complexity, by decomposing the system into smaller sub problems based on its essential physics. A case study was carried out to redesign a function of fuel adaptation. The analysis was performed with the support of a tool, which covers all the phases of the method.

AUTOSAR (AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture) is a worldwide standard for automotive basic software in line with an architecture that eases exchange and transfer of application software components between platforms or companies. AUTOSAR provides the standardized architecture together with the specifications of the basics software along with the methodology for developing embedded control units for automotive applications. AUTOSAR matured over the last several years through intensive development, implementation and maintenance. Two main releases (R3.2 and R4.0) represent its current degree of maturity. AUTOSAR is driven by so called core partners: leading car manufacturers (BMW, Daimler, Ford, GM, PSA, Toyota, Volkswagen) together with the tier 1 suppliers Continental and Bosch. AUTOSAR in total has more than 150 companies (OEM, Tier X suppliers, SW and tool suppliers, and silicon suppliers) as members from all over the world.

This paper presents the conceptual model and the fundamental mechanisms for software development in the context of the Brite-EuRam project Safety Related Fault Tolerant Systems in Vehicles (nick-named X-By-Wire). The objective of the X-By-Wire project is to achieve a framework for the introduction of safety related fault tolerant electronic systems without mechanical backup in vehicles. To achieve the required level of fault-tolerance, an X-By-Wire system must be designed as a distributed system comprising a number of fault-tolerant units connected by a reliable real-time communication system. For the communication system, the time-triggered TTP/C real-time communication protocol was selected. TTP/C provides fault-tolerance message transfer, state synchronization, reliable detection of node failures, a global time base, and a distributed membership service. Redundancy is used for masking failures of individual processor nodes and hardware peripherals.

Current exhaust gas emission regulations can only be well adhered to through optimal interplay of combustion engine and exhaust gas after-treatment systems. Combining a modern diesel engine with several exhaust gas after-treatment components (DPF, catalytic converters) leads to extremely complex drive systems, with very complex and technically demanding control systems. Current engine ECUs (Electronic Control Unit) have hundreds of functions with thousands of parameters that can be adapted to keep the exhaust gas emissions within the given limits. Each of these functions has to be calibrated and tested in accordance with the rest of the ECU software. To date this task has been performed mostly on engine test benches or in Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL) setups. In this paper, a Software-in-the-Loop (SiL) approach, consisting of an engine model and an exhaust gas treatment (EGT) model, coupled with software from a real diesel engine ECU, will be described in detail.

Serial communication by means of CAN is being used more and more for data transfer between in-vehicle control units to link components of the drive train, body electronics and mobile communication electronics. In order to design distributed electronic systems, software engineers today must not only develop the application software but also supply the communication software to handle the communication hardware, thereby reinventing the wheel with each new application software package. This procedure is inefficient as it leads to hardly reusable special solutions. To avoid incompatibilities between the modules of a distributed system a lot of additional coordination work must be done during the design phase. As a consequence, each new software package is faced with additional costs for the indispensible tests of the communication software. This paper describes a network architecture that has been designed for CAN systems.

This paper describes the architecture and the implementation of a software for the communication between networked in-vehicle ECUs. The communication software is based upon a real-time multitasking operating system. The operating system and the communication software form an application-independent platform for the implementation of distributed ECU software. The software architecture consists of several communication layers and a station management module. The communication layers provide network driver, data transfer services and an application interface that is independent of the used network protocol. The station management module is responsible for configuration and initialization of the communication controller, error detection during operation and error handling. The modula r structure of the architecture supports the simple adaptation of the software to different bus systems and communication controllers.

This paper describes the concept of the operating system ERCOS (Embedded Real-time Control Operating System). ERCOS has been specially designed to meet the functionality and performance requirements in the area of automotive applications. The ever increasing functional requirements for modern electronic control units are introducing considerable complexity in the area of software development. It is well known that real-time operating systems provide powerful means to handle complex functions under real-time constraints. Past experience, however, has shown that the efficiency and flexibility of operating systems was very often inadequate for automotive applications. To overcome these insufficiencies the operating system ERCOS has been designed with dedicated support for automotive requirements. This has been achieved by supplementing the run-time part of the operating system by powerful off-line tools.

This paper describes the first results from the AutoMoDe project (Automotive Model-based Development), where an integrated methodology for model-based development of automotive control software is being developed. The results presented include a number of problem-oriented graphical notations, based on a formally defined operational model, which are associated with system views for various degrees of abstraction. It is shown how the approach can be used for partitioning comprehensive system designs for subsequent implementation-related tasks. Recent experiences from a case study of an engine management system, specific issues related to reengineering, and the current status of CASE-tool support are also presented.