Experience of introducing reference architectures in the development of automotive electronic systems

Abstract

The requirements on increasing functionality, quality, and, customisation, while reducing cost has lead to the introduction of an architecture centred development process for electronic systems at Volvo Cars. This process enables better control of system integration and achieving non-functional requirements, such as reusability, understandability, etc. The result of the process is a reference architecture that includes strategies for implementing the balanced requirements, architectural views that provide means for reasoning about all the concerns of all stakeholders, and a top-level design of the architecturally significant parts. The reference architecture guides the design of several projects, and thus, cost is optimised accordingly. The main contribution of this paper is that we present experiences from introducing the architecture centred process. The main conclusions are that disseminating and maintaining the reference architecture actually require more resources than developing it. Furthermore, experience shows it is difficult to create an architecture that enables a lot of different variants that is also strategically useable in the long term.

Towards guidelines for building a business case and gathering evidence of software reference architectures in industry

“…For instance, Océ, one of the world's leading copier manufacturers, uses an RA to derive an SA for engines incorporated in a specific series of Océ printers (Graaf et al 2005). Besides, in the automotive industry, car manufacturers such as Volvo (Eklund et al 2005) and BMW (Reichart and Haneberg 2004) started to use RAs to develop the software of electronic/engine control unit based on basic software components that were unique to them. As a further step, AUTOSAR has become popular later because it standardizes basic software components for many car manufacturers, suppliers and other related companies (AUTOSAR 2014).…”

“…Context Typically, organizations drive the design and use of RAs in an unsystematic manner (Eklund et al 2005). To drive RA-related practices based on evidence, it becomes fundamental to identify the relevant aspects of RAs as seen by practitioners.…”

A reference architecture for cooperative driving

“…Reference architectures are commonly being adopted for enabling better control of system integration and achieving non-functional goals such as reusability, understandability, etc. [2] 1.2. Contribution of this paper…”

Key factors for achieving project success in integration of automotive mechatronics

“…Cost targets drive the use of platforms both for the complete vehicle as well as for the in-vehicle computer system. An in-vehicle computer platform is a set of design decisions, components, processes and tools that is reused between vehicles [8].…”