Project Profile

The ITEA 2 AMALTHEA project is developing a consistent, open and expandable tool platform for automotive embedded-system engineering based on model-driven methodology. Specific features will include support for multi-core systems combined with AUTOSAR compatibility and product-line engineering. The resulting tool platform will be distributed under an Eclipse public license.

Driver-assistance functions and pollution control in modern cars are performed increasingly by embedded software systems. This has required a continuous increase in computing power while also meeting demands for reduced energy and lower costs. Multi-core technology is therefore being used increasingly in automotive electronic control units (ECUs) to handle such needs.

However, software-intensive and embedded automotive systems pose new challenges to development environments. There is an increasing demand for complexity, performance and reliability for the development results. Tools are expected to offer compliance to industry standards, transparency, auditability, performance and usability.

PARALLEL-PROCESSING ENVIRONMENTSOne of the biggest challenges for automotive systems – particularly for ECUs – is the shift to parallel-processing platforms. ECU software development processes have to be extended to support multi-core platforms and to cover the high number of variants up to the production line.

However, existing applications cannot benefit immediately from multi-core ECUs as they are not designed to run on such architectures. In addition, applications and systems have to be migrated into AUTOSAR – the open and standardised architecture for automotive software, jointly developed in Europe by automobile manufacturers, suppliers and tool developers and being adopted globally. New development environments are needed to meet these trends.

Moreover, as automotive systems are always produced with a high number of variants, many companies have adapted a product-line approach which is poorly supported by current development environments. AMALTHEA is therefore developing a new tool platform which takes all these aspects into account and provides comprehensive support for product-line engineering from requirements engineering to product configuration.

Ultrasonic sensors for safe lane changes & predictive brake assist (source: Robert Bosch GmbH)

Model-based approach to automotive systems Expandable open platform supportsAUTOSAR-compatible multi-core systems and product line engineering• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

AMALTHEA(ITEA 2 ~ 09013)• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

nPartnersDelphi Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts ETAS ifak Inno-W itemis Metso AutomationMobileraNokia Siemens Networks Regensburg University of Applied Sciences/LaS³ Robert Bosch GmbHTiming-Architects TOFAŞ Türk Otomobil Fabrikası University of Oulu University of Paderborn

nCountries involvedFinlandGermany Turkey

nProject start July 2011

nProject end December 2013

nContact

Project leader :Karlheinz Topp, Robert Bosch GmbH

Email :karlheinz.topp@de.bosch.com

Project Profile

COMPLETE TOOL CHAINThe ITEA 2 project is developing a complete tool chain olatform and a development process based on model-driven software engineering to structure and simplify the development work. Multi-core central processing unit support throughout the whole design flow will help address advanced performance and reliability requirements. These will be met by integrating the most promising approaches into one continuous design flow.

Such a tool chain with the related design flow will be a major innovation for the automotive domain. Moreover, AUTOSAR compliance will guarantee a development result according to the most important automotive software standard. The resulting tool chain will be based on the Eclipse open-source project. The open-source approach will help guarantee transparency and long-term maintenance of the results.

The AMALTHEA platform will support: n Development of software for multi-core

systems;n Handling of large volumes of data;n Configuration of automotive software

systems;n Code generation for target hardware

systems; n Interfaces to multi-core timing

simulation and software partitioning tools;

n Test management and test generation tools based on established standards;

n A continuous tool chain; andn Compliance with standards.

The tool platform will support a method for parallelisation of the software in embedded systems so that an optimised mapping of software components to cores is possible. In addition to the parallelisation of the software components, the communication of the components and the dependencies between the components can be simulated.The architecture of the tool chain and the platform is shown in the picture below.

COVERING ALL DEVELOPMENT ASPECTSThe AMALTHEA tool platform will support all aspects of the development cycle.While addressing the automotive domain predominantly, it will be extensible to telecommunications to deal with such systems in their native environment and integrated into a car. It will also be possible to simulate parallel systems and support debugging of multi-core systems. Configuration tools for product lines and multi-core variants will also be included in the tool chain.

Requirements management for safety aspects will also be possible to support the safety-critical nature of most automotive ECUs. The tool chain will include data-description tools and editors as well as support for visualisation tools, graphical editors and hardware-software co-design.

Support will also be provided for verification and validation of the systems with provision of optimal multi-core real-time scheduling and formal validation of timing requirements. The result will be an open tool platform. This will be available both as open source under the Eclipse public license and for integration with existing or new tools either on a company-specific basis or with commercially available tools.

EUROPEAN BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES Car making is a major European industry with global supply chains. The major impact of this ITEA 2 project will be a reduction in development costs and the building of a de-facto standard development environment platform. Costs will be reduced by sharing effort for developing and maintaining the tools.

Moreover, there will be new business opportunities created around the tool platform – such as services for adoption of the platform and integration of existing or newly developed extensions. The availability of an open-source development environment with specific features for the automotive domain such as AUTOSAR compatibility will also open up the automotive market for newcomers and speed the development of new functions for cleaner, safer and more comfortable vehicles.

AMALTHEA Platform

ITEA 2 OfficeHigh Tech Campus 69 - 35656 AG EindhovenThe NetherlandsTel : +31 88 003 6136Fax : +31 88 003 6130Email : info@itea2.orgWeb : www.itea2.org

n ITEA 2 – Information Technology for European Advancement – is Europe’s premier co-operative R&D programme driving pre-competitive research on embedded and distributed software-intensive systems and services. As a EUREKA strategic Cluster, we support co-ordinated national funding submissions and provide the link between those who provide finance, technology and software engineering. Our aim is to mobilise a total of 20,000 person-years over the full eight-year period of our programme from 2006 to 2013.

n ITEA 2-labelled projects are industry-driven initiatives building vital middleware and preparing standards to lay the foundations for the next generation of products, systems, appliances and services. Our programme results in real product innovation that boosts European competitiveness in a wide range of industries. Specifically, we play a key role in crucial application domains where software dominates, such as aerospace, automotive, consumer electronics, healthcare/medical systems and telecommunications.

n ITEA 2 projects involve complementary R&D from at least two companies in two countries. We issue annual Calls for Projects, evaluate projects and help bring research partners together. Our projects are open to partners from large industrial companies and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as public research institutes and universities.

October 2011AMALTHEA(ITEA 2 ~ 09013)