STUTTGART, Germany — The pursuit of different options within the Autosar automotive software platform and a "mix-and-match" approach by some implementers is leading to software incompatibilities which could undermine the standard's high-level goals, according to experts. The risk is that short-term cost pressure to limit hardware resources may lead OEMs to take short cuts across the standard, bending the rules if not breaking them, and leading to long-term costs in tailoring software to vehicle ranges and models.

The electronic content of the automobile is expanding dramatically, driven by several concurrent forces, including consumer demand for entertainment systems and convenience functions, the addition of enhanced safety features, and government emission control regulations.
Consequently, engineers are working to raise the functionality of electronics, while simultaneously devising strategies to improve fault tolerance and provide fail-safe operation of all critical systems.

As computer vision based systems like lane tracking,
face tracking and obstacle detection mature an enhanced
range of driver assistance systems are becoming
feasible.

Within the automotive industry model-based specification techniques are the basis for the definition of seamless design processes allowing the complete, the consistent, and the unambiguous specification of software and hardware parts of car specific networks of control units. For a successful application, those modeling approaches have to give methodical support for adequately capturing the architecture in the targeted system class. In our opinion most standard modeling languages leave room for improvement exactly at this point.

Until recently, in the automotive industry, reuse of software has entirely
been a typical activity of suppliers. They try to reduce the
increasing software development costs that stem from rising complexity
and size of software in the modern automobile. Lately, also
the automotive manufacturers began to develop specific software
with competitive relevance.

How can software and the systems that rely on it be made dependable
in a cost-effective manner, and how can one obtain assurance
that dependability has been achieved? Rather than focusing narrowly
on the question of software or system certification per se.

While not a simple protocol, its speed, determinism, and fault tolerance enable by-wire, safety, and other features. Here is a rundown on FlexRay's design, function, and applications.

By Mathias Rausch, Freescale Semiconductor

In the automotive sector electronics gain more and more importance. Often these electronic systems play an active role in the operation of a car. A lot of the manufacturers have a mechanical background and are now faced with the growing complexity of electronic systems with the accompanying eSW. The software teams that develop this eSW have grown fast and do not always have the needed knowledge on how to develop eSW in a sound way. Each link in the development chain, from requirements capture until software maintenance once the system is in the field, is important.

A step-by-step guide to what's necessary to satisfy the IEC61508 safety-critical requirements for compiler verification.
By Richard Barry