Ramin Tavakoli Kolagari

The EAST-ADL architecture description language for automotive embedded software

Current trends in automotive embedded systems focus on how to manage the increasing software content, with a strong emphasis on standardization of the embedded software structure. The management of engineering information remains a critical challenge in order to support development and other stages of the life-cycle. System modelling based on an Architecture Description Language (ADL) is a way to keep these assets within one information structure. This paper presents the EAST- ADL2 modelling language, developed in the ITEA EAST-EEA project and further enhanced in the ATESST project (www.atesst.org). EAST- ADL2 supports comprehensive model-based development of embedded systems and provides dedicated constructs to facilitate variability and product line management, requirements engineering, representation of functional as well as software/hardware solutions, and timing and safety analysis.

Managing Complexity of Automotive Electronics Using the EAST-ADL

The complexity of embedded automotive systems calls for a more rigorous approach to system development compared to current state of practice. A critical issue is the management of the engineering information that defines the embedded system. Development time, cost efficiency, quality and dependability all benefit from appropriate information management. System modeling based on an architecture description language is a way to keep the engineering information within one information structure. The EAST-ADL was developed in the EAST-EEA project (www.easteea.net) and is an architecture description language for automotive embedded systems. It is currently refined in the ATESSTproject (www.atesst.org). This paper gives an overview of the EAST-ADL and accounts for some recent refinements as developed in the ATESST project. Areas covered include the relation to other standardization initiatives such as UML2.0, AADL, AUTOSAR, SysML, Marte profile, requirements management and variability.

Towards improving dependability of automotive systems by using the EAST-ADL architecture description language

The complexity of embedded automotive systems calls for a more rigorous approach to system development compared to current state of practice. A critical issue is the management of the engineering information that defines the embedded system. Development time, cost efficiency, quality and most importantly, dependability, all benefit from appropriate information management. System modeling based on an architecture description language is a way to keep the engineering information in one information structure. The EAST-ADL was developed in the EAST-EEA project (www.east-eea.org) and is an architecture description language for automotive embedded systems. It is currently refined in the ATESST project (www.atesst.org). This chapter describes how dependability is addressed in the EAST-ADL. The engineering process defined in the EASIS project (www.easis-online.org) is used as an example to illustrate the support for engineering processes in EAST-ADL.

Compositional Variability — Concepts and Patterns ∗

Most software-intensive systems rely on a componentbased design and are therefore made up of encapsulated structural units which are hierarchically composed of one another. In this paper, we (1) propose a scheme for rigorously managing variability in the context of such a compositional hierarchy, which consistently extends the paradigm of component-based design to variability management, (2) present several basic patterns of specifying variability when applying this scheme in practice, and (3) show how all this was technically realized in EAST-ADL2, an architecture description language for automotive software development. While the observations and concepts discussed in this paper emerged from an automotive context, they are arguably applicable to many other industrial domains involving software-intensive systems.

Model-Based Analysis and Engineering of Automotive Architectures with EAST-ADL: Revisited

Modern cars have turned into complex high-technology products, subject to strict safety and timing requirements, in a short time span. This evolution has translated into development processes that are not as efficient, flexible and agile as they could or should be. This paper presents the main aspects and capabilities of a rich model-based design framework, founded on EAST-ADL. EAST-ADL is an architecture description language specific to the automotive domain and complemented by a methodology compliant with the functional safety standard for the automotive domain ISO26262. The language and the methodology are used to develop an information model in the sense of a conceptual model, providing the engineer the basis for specifying the various aspects of the system. Inconsistencies, redundancies, and partly even missing system description aspects can be found automaticlally by advanced analyses and optimization capabilities to effectively improve development processes of modern cars.

Reusing requirements: the need for extended variability models

The paper describes a product-line-oriented approach to reusing requirements for systems with highly complex variability. Software product lines are a powerful means to manage comprehensively of all artifacts produced during system development for reuse. Hence, classical product line approaches provide mechanisms to handle requirements for reuse. But especially in the context of automotive systems, we face the challenge of creating reusable requirements specifications that each contain variability; reuse for requirements specifications of this kind means handling variability of variability models. This paper describes techniques for generating requirements specifications with variability from a so-called requirements library. The research results described originate from a process improvement initiative at DaimlerChrysler. The presented approaches are therefore pragmatic and aimed at current industrial practice but are formally based on a category-theoretical notation. Driven by practical issues, the paper comes up with extended means for variability modeling and a new notion of variability, broadening the scope of what can be managed by product lines.

Engineering support for automotive embedded systems beyond Autosar

The future de-facto standard for automotive electric/electronic (E/E) architectures, AUTOSAR (1), is becoming more and more mature. In December 2007 there has been a release of the version 3.0, and automotive OEMs are already using AUTOSAR technology in their series production projects. Even though there has been an evolution of which engineering information and concepts are part of AUTOSAR and there are still things to be defined, there will always be a number of issues outside the scope of this standardization initiative. As AUTOSAR has become a de facto standard, there is an obvious possibility now to define general systems engineering concepts complementary to and thus going beyond the current AUTOSAR specifications. In this paper we describe the advantages of having an integrated architecture description language (ADL) specific for the development of E/E systems in the automotive domain. We present the core concepts for such an integrated ADL which targets an overall systems engineering approach: the EAST-ADL2. The original EAST-ADL was developed in the EAST-EEA project (7) and basic concepts were reused in the AUTOSAR standardization initiative. Lately, the original EAST-ADL has been refined and extended in the ATESST project (www.atesst.org) to EAST-ADL2. The EAST-ADL2 conceptually integrates and links engineering information related to multiple engineering disciplines such as product line engineering, requirements engineering, control engineering, software engineering, safety engineering and real-time systems engineering. The ADL docs not prescribe a specific development process and it lends itself to top-down, bottom-up and middle-out development approaches and methods. As a central part, the EAST-ADL2 defines a system model which is organized in parts representing different levels of abstraction, reflecting different views and levels of details of the vehicle E/E architecture. By identifying AUTOSAR as belonging to only one certain level of abstraction, namely the implementation level, we also show that there is a way to define complementary ADL concepts without interfering with AUTOSAR. These describe engineering information that is more abstract, with different engineering focus and thus - from the EAST-ADL2 perspective - on different levels of abstraction.

Manifoldness of Variability Modeling -- Considering the Potential for Further Integration

A major problem in the manufacture of optical fibre cables is the strain to which the fibres are subjected, which strain could damage the fibres. To enable this strain to be monitored, and hence remedial action to be taken, one or more metallic elements are incorporated in the cable, each such element with its insulation being similar in thickness to an optical fibre with its sheath. The electrical resistance of the metallic elements varies very little with temperature, but does vary with strain, so by monitoring resistance, one monitors strain. Although mainly intended for use during manufacture, the method can be used whenever strain monitoring is needed.

Towards Improving Dependability by Using an Architecture Description Language

The complexity of embedded automotive systems calls for a more rigorous approach to system development compared to current state of practice. A critical issue is the management of the engineering i ...

EAST-ADL: An Architecture Description Language for Automotive Software-intensive Systems in the Light of Recent use and Research

EAST-ADL is an Architecture Description Language (ADL) initially defined in several European-funded research projects and aligned with AUTOSAR and ISO26262. It provides a comprehensive approach for defining automotive electronic systems through an information model that captures engineering information in a standardized form. Aspects covered include vehicle features, requirements, analysis functions, software and hardware components and communication. The representation of the systems implementation is not defined in EAST-ADL itself but by AUTOSAR. However, traceability is supported from EAST-ADLs lower abstraction levels to the implementation level elements in AUTOSAR. In this article the authors describe EAST-ADL in detail, show how it relates to AUTOSAR as well as other significant automotive standards and present recent research work on using and advancing EAST-ADL, the functional safety standard ISO 26262, heterogeneous multi / many core architectures, security and for multi-objective optimization.