Software has become an integral component of modern automobiles. It takes on the most versatile functions and is already distributed across up to 80 control units from different suppliers today. The challenge arising from this scenario is that the devices and their software must work together error-free even in seemingly trivial vehicle functions such as electric window lifters and need to be adapted individually to an increasing model diversity.

In order to simplify the development of such systems in the future and to guarantee high quality, manufacturers and suppliers in the automotive industry across Europe, Asia, and the USA have joined forces with manufacturers of software development tools in the AUTOSAR initiative (Automotive Open System Architecture) to commit to the standardization of architectures, interfaces, and basic control unit software. The AUTOSAR standard is expected to lead to cost reductions for automotive systems while at the same time increasing the quality of the software.

SQC is a partner in the AUTOSAR initiative and is involved in developing this standard in the ”System and Control Unit Configurations” group. The aim of this workgroup is the variant management for individual automotive systems and the standardization of exchange formats for the configuration data supporting the various opportunities for collaboration between manufacturers and suppliers.

The development of systems according to AUTOSAR needs to be integrated into the development processes of automakers and suppliers. With the aXBench, SQC has established a prototype for the function-oriented development of embedded systems in a vehicle. The software supports essential development steps such as modeling of vehicle functions and their distribution onto hardware as well as analysis and evaluation of such specifications. The aXBench considers a multitude of vehicle variants when modeling the functions, thus allowing for an individual adaptation of the software. At the same time, all vehicle variants are managed in only a single joint model. For modeling, the aXBench uses the architecture description language aXLang that was specifically designed for system families with features, software, and hardware. The import and export into various formats (e.g. AUTOSAR, SystemC, XML) is intended.