AUTOSAR

AUTOSAR (AUTomotive Open System Architecture) is an open software architecture, developed jointly by automobile manufacturers, system providers and tools developers. These companies, organized in a consortium, have the objective to create and set up standards for E/E systems of the automotive industry, to provide a basis for developing software, human-machine interfaces and control systems.

AUTOSAR objectives are:

• the standardization of basic software functions
• the management of vehicle variants
• the transferability of functions throughout a network
• the improvement of integration of modules provided by multiple suppliers
• the improvement of maintenance of embedded software

Since its first release in 2005, AUTOSAR has evolved into a stable and mature standard, and AUTOSAR-compliant tools are now available on-the-shelf. Since the end of 2009 the release 4 implements some improvements based on the experience of the consortium members, as well as the basis for future evolution.

What are the improvements for the companies?

With the standardization, companies do not have to develop everything from drivers and low-level software up to the application software. They can focus on their own core business, the system development itself, while relying on stable and verified Basic Software bought on-the-shelf. AUTOSAR release 4 introduces the concept of Conformance Testing, which in the end will provide an assessment of the quality of the Basic Software with respect to the standard. This will be put in place in the years to come.

AUTOSAR specifies the meta-model of all configuration data exchanged between activities (specification, configuration, etc.), and these models are written in XML. When COTS tools are compliant to these models, they are inter-operable, which eases both the use and the maintenance of those tools (it is possible to change the tool provider).

What are the problems?

AUTOSAR covers many aspects, from low-level services standardization to very high-level, application-oriented, API. Although the documentation is complete and clear, it is not always easy to find one's way through the maze of meta-models, configuration parameters, APIs, etc. The first contact can be difficult without help from people familiar with the standard.

In this respect, with the standardization comes the problem of compliance. How a company can prove that the software is AUTOSAR-compliant? Is it possible to put a process in place that will ensure that the product will be in line with the standard?

Since AUTOSAR has been well-established and stable for many years, many tools are available on the market for the system designers and function suppliers. Is it possible to find a tool that fits one's needs in this prolific offer? Sometimes the best solution is to develop some dedicated tool that would easily fix a particular issue, but this can be assessed only on a case-by-case basis.

How pulse-AR can help you?

Based on the skills and expertise of its employees, pulse-AR can help you:

• Define your needs in terms of tools and process, and how your existing process can be adapted to match AUTOSAR requirements
• Adapt or develop tools so that they are compliant with AUTOSAR meta-model: pulse-AR develops internally Quasar, a tool for system specification with focus on the safety assessment and variant handling; this tool is based on Eclipse, the open industry-standard environment, which is ready for evolution through a plug-in mechanism: pulse-AR can develop such plug-in on demand, so that it fits a particular need.
• Specify, realize, integrate and/or test a piece of software: so that you can focus on the system design, pulse-AR can undertake part of or all the development life cycle
• Provide support during the discussions between partners in the development, for example for the integration of several pieces of software coming for multiple suppliers.

Please contact us so that we can define a perimeter that corresponds to your needs.