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Commercial vehicle manufacturers face unique challenges for the development of vehicle electronics systems. For one, customers typically have unique requirements coupled with an expectation of high reliability. Vehicle electronics is often the enabler for customized features. Ensuring that the vehicle will perform as demanded and promised adds a degree of burden on the vehicle manufacturers. Furthermore, the verification and testing of a large number of unique electronic system configurations is very expensive and time-consuming. This paper will explore how Model-Based Design can be used to meet these challenges and provide a high degree of confidence for both the manufacturer and the customer that requirements have been met. It will discuss factors to consider to support configurability, approaches for defining a system architecture that facilitates reuse, and capabilities for modeling state-based systems.

Using Model-Based Design, engineers model complex systems and simulate them on their desktop environment for analysis and design purposes. Model-Based Design supports a wide variety of C/C++ code generation applications that include stand-alone simulation, rapid control prototyping, hardware-in-the-loop testing, and production or embedded code deployment. Many of these code generation scenarios impose different requirements on the generated code. Stand-alone simulations usually need to run fast, for parameter sweep or Monte Carlo studies, but do not need to execute in true hard real-time. Hardware-in-the-loop tests by definition use engine control unit (ECU) component hardware that requires a hard real-time execution environment to protect the physical devices. Code generated for production ECUs must satisfy hard real-time, efficiency, legacy code, and other requirements involving verification and validation efforts.

The increased adoption of electronic controls in off-highway machines increases the complexity of typical machine systems and stresses the traditional process used to develop these machines. To address this issue design engineers are turning from the traditional design methods to Model-Based Design. By using models in the early design stages, engineers can create executable specifications that enable them to immediately validate and verify specifications against the requirements. These models also allow the machine designer to evaluate the complex interactions between mechanics, hydraulics, electronics and other physical phenomena and thereby detect design errors earlier when the cost to fix them is less. This paper presents a model-based approach for developing off-highway equipment machine systems. A dynamic model of the machine and the electro-hydraulic implement and propulsion system is developed and used to verify the overall machine behavior.

When developing software it is important to consider process, methods, and tools. For safety-critical software, standards such as IEC 61508 are often used to impose additional constraints on the development process and require the production of verification evidence and other artifacts. These constraints and artifacts are needed whether or not the design and code were produced manually or via tool automation. This paper discusses the usage of Production Code Generation for safety-critical software development.

Model-Based Design is no longer limited to R&D and pilot programs; it is frequently used for production programs at automotive companies around the world. The demands of production programs drive an even greater need for tools and practices that enable automation and rigor in the area of verification, validation, and test. Without these tools and practices, achieving the quality demanded by the automotive market is not possible. This paper presents best practices in verification, validation, and test that are applicable to any program, but are critical when applying Model-Based Design in production programs.

Model-Based Design with automatic code generation has long been employed for rapid prototyping and is increasing being used for mass production deployment. With the focus on production usage, comes the need to implement a comprehensive V&V strategy involving models and resulting code. A main principal of Model-Based Design is that generated code should behave like the simulation model. It should also be possible to verify that the model or design was fully implemented in the code. As a result, the transformation of models into generated code must be done in a way that facilitates traceability between the model and code. Also automated tests should be performed to determine that the code executes properly in its final software and hardware environments. For example in a typical commercial vehicle application, the control algorithm and plant model are simulated together in a system simulation environment.