Tool enables flexible data exchange in E/E engineering

Exchange formats, such as ReqIF, KBL or AUTOSAR, are proven standards in the automotive industry. They help to reduce the complexity when developing E/E systems (electric/electronic systems). Therefore, Vector Informatik has expanded the E/E engineering solution PREEvision with inclusion of ReqIF and KBL 2.4. With the requirements interchange format (ReqIF), as a supplement to RIF, users not only benefit from the facilitated exchange of requirements in PREEvision 8.5 – they can also import and export descriptions of customer functions and even test specifications.

Individual files or entire directories containing images, tables, formatted text and OLE objects may be optionally exchanged. A special function of PREEvision is the export of arbitrary parts of a model in the ReqIF format. For a selected hardware architecture, for example, ReqIF objects are created for each node in the network and for the connections between the nodes. PREEvision then collects this data in a ReqIF file. In this way, requirements documents can be created based on the detailed information in the engineering model and can be updated easily during development, if changes have been made.

In addition to ReqIF, PREEvision 8.5 supports version 2.4 of the KBL format ('Kabelbaumliste', 'Harness Description List') for the consistent digital description of wiring harness data. For an even more precise representation of the wiring harness in the model, developers are provided with new means of description in PREEvision 8.5: Cavities, fuse boxes, fuse values and installation instructions can now be elaborated in detail which facilitates the development of cost-efficient wiring harness designs.

Furthermore, PREEvision 8.5 provides numerous improvements in terms of the ease of use, of working with diagrams and of additional functions: A UML-based package diagram is available for designing service-oriented architectures; the switch diagram allows for modelling switch configurations of Ethernet networks graphically.

PREEvision is the tool for model-based E/E engineering from the architecture design to series production. The software supports architects, network designers, development engineers and test engineers throughout the entire development process: Multifaceted functions for architecture design, requirements management, design of safety-related systems, AUTOSAR system architectures and wiring harness development are available in one application without tool changeovers.