A Modeling Framework for Efficient Safety Critical Time-Triggered Architecture Design

During the last years there has been an explosion of functionality embedded within automotive vehicles, leading to a dramatic increase in the number of in vehicle ECUs. The transition from a federated to an integrated architecture would provide multiple economic benefits such as the reduction in the number of ECUs and wiring. However, software code is not composable by itself and it is difficult to proof the time and value correctness of safety-critical and non-safety-critical applications running within the same execution unit. In addition to this, the x-by-wire systems deployment will soon push the automotive industry in the area of safety-critical systems.

This paper describes the “Time-Triggered Modelware” (TTM) novel approach for the design, development and execution of safety-critical embedded-systems that is based on a composable, efficient and deterministic (time and value domain correctness) execution environment. The paper also describes the design, development and execution of a simplified steer-by-wire demonstrator.