IESF Europe 2012: Network Design, Integration and AUTOSAR

TECHNICAL SESSION This session focuses on the first steps in the development of an AUTOSAR example system, starting from requirements, defining the SW architecture and the ECU/network topology, allocating SW to ECUs, and ending with communication design. We will see how Volcano VSA is used to architect the system, allocate functionality, and design the communication matrix. This includes validation against timing requirements and consistency checking of the entire design before generating AUTOSAR ECU extracts, which will be the input to next phase of the design process. In addition, this session shows how the Volcano VSx tool chain can be used in large projects with distributed, iterative development and gradually increasing functionality, leading up to increased efficiency of development throughout the supply chain.

TECHNICAL SESSION One of the AUTOSAR standard’s key points is to enable reuse of application SW, which leads to shorter development time and enables early validation of software components in the virtual environment. But when it comes to validation in the physical environment, connecting to real sensors/actuators, and communicating with real ECUs, the availability of the ECU HW is often a limiting factor, especially given the fact that the HW development is typically initiated by an ECU supplier company only after being nominated for a project. In addition to the virtual validation of software components provided by Mentor Graphics’ VSI tool, an interesting and fully compatible alternative or next step is to use a rapid prototyping ECU such as the MBtech Virtual AUTOSAR Platform (VAP): a highly configurable system based on industry PC standards and equipped with AUTOSAR BSW and tooling from Mentor. The VAP can be used to validate the complete ECU’s functionality, from its application SW via the AUTOSAR BSW to real sensor/actuator or communication interfaces. In this session we will see how the VAP prototype ECU can be used for proof of concept, validating ECU configurations and integration with real ECUs.

TECHNICAL SESSION After the system-level design is completed and the SW development is at least initiated, the ECU design and configuration can start. The task is to configure the AUTOSAR Basic SW (BSW) modules to operate according to the needs of the application SW. The AUTOSAR BSW provides a complete embedded SW platform, with services such as task scheduling, memory protection, NVRAM management, communication, diagnostics, cryptographic services, etc. – more of less every service the application SW of an automotive ECU needs. Configuring an ECU’s BSW can be complex and error prone unless supported by adequate tooling and the appropriate methodology. In this session we will see how to configure the BSW of the ECU according to the needs of the application, using input from the previous design steps. We will demonstrate the power of a top-down development approach combined with design automation for the ECU configuration task.

TECHNICAL SESSION In this session you will learn about AUTOSAR processes at specific OEMs, e.g. how they deploy the AUTOSAR 4.0 specifications in their car projects, how they develop ECU’s in AUTOSAR 4.0, and how they are processing their software design on particular platforms. You will see which problems came up, how they have been solved and what we learned in these customer projects.
BMW example:
Processing of the AUTOSAR 4.0 –based ECU development and testing for the 35up platform at BMW:
• AUTOSAR 4.0 reference integration at BMW – specifications in the BAC 4.0 project
• AUTOSAR 4.0 ECU development process
• VAP (Virtuelle Absicherungsplatform) -Virtual Validation Platform design process at BMW

Volvo example:
• AUTOSAR 4.0 SPA development process
• Project experience: problems, solutions and learnings

TECHNICAL SESSION Application SW development in an AUTOSAR context means that algorithms are partitioned into connected SW components, which in turn contain executable functions (called runnable entities in AUTOSAR). This structured definition of how the application SW is partitioned and executed enables simple relocation and reuse of application SW components inside or between ECUs. It also includes what can be called virtual validation – execution and verification of the SW components individually or in a system using a typical PC. However, to reach these benefits the application SW components require a detailed model description that can only be designed with appropriate tools. In this session we will see how to refine the system-level design from the previous session into detailed SW implementation for a selected set of SW components. We will define the internal structure of SW components and execute the SW components on top of a real AUTOSAR operating system in order to verify functional correctness.

TECHNICAL SESSION Background and history
A holistic top-down approach
Future outlook