An aid to automotive architecture design

The required electric/electronic architecture in the vehicle can now be designed and managed with the PREEvision development tool. In the current version, the required services, the corresponding software components, all interfaces and the communication nodes are modeled with SOA diagrams. They are based on the widely used UML graphic modeling language (Unified Modeling Language).

To realise suitable bandwidths for communication in the vehicle, Ethernet technology is increasingly being used. The corresponding communication design is developed in PREEvision according to the AUTOSAR method. Ethernet descriptions can be imported and exported as an AUTOSAR file without difficulty. In order to model Ethernet networks, PREEvision 8.0 handles mixed topologies: different bus technologies such as Ethernet, CAN, LIN and FlexRay can be connected to one another via a gateway. A special cluster approach ensures a clear overview for complex architectures

The Ethernet topology connected via switches differs greatly from the classic bus technologies in vehicles: here a bus can be subdivided into different independent networks. This Virtual Local Area Networks (VLAN) plays an important role in the area of cyber security.

VLANs also enable the management of available bandwidth. They are developed using diagrams and tables in PREEvision and configured with switches. A signal router creates an initial VLAN structure as a starting point for development or considers predefined VLANs in a given structure for the routing. The signal router automatically generates a majority of the needed communication artifacts and thus facilitates, for example, the socket configuration – usually a time-consuming and error-prone development task.

PREEvision 8.0 introduces even more improvements: the integrated test engineering and test management, which was previously only available as a product option, is now available in all licenses. The new DBC-ECU extract limits the DBC export to the data for one ECU and therefore supports focused data exchange between OEM and supplier. There are also various program stability and usability improvements.