Enabling Rapid Design Exploration through Virtual Integration and Simulation of Fault Tolerant Automotive Application

Modern automotive applications such as X-by-Wire are implemented over distributed architectures where electronic control units (ECU's) communicate via broadcast buses. In this paper, we present a framework for quick exploration of design alternatives in terms of HW/SW architectures for distributed applications. The exploration is carried out on a virtual integration platform that allows the distribution of embedded software onto ECU's. The framework shortens design turn-around time by supporting semi-automatic communication protocol model configuration (e.g. frame packaging, redundancy level, etc.), and then by allowing the designer to run fast yet accurate simulations of a virtual prototype of the distributed architecture that includes models of the application software and the bus communication protocols. As a result, design errors can be found earlier in the design process, before the system integration in the car, therefore resulting in savings in both production and development costs. Simulation results show that the method is scalable in terms of simulation performance degradation.