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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.

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.