Towards Cloud-supported Automotive Software Development and Test

Abstract

The development of automotive software has been an evolving process for the last decades. As a result, the paradigm of software development which is independent of the target hardware platform has been adopted in almost all parts of the automotive industry. Deploying software to a hardware platform is now controlled by an enormous parameter set stored in a mapping configuration. This led to the creation of numerous vendor-specific tools for electronic control unit (ECU) development. While this approach simplifies and supports the re-usability of vehicle functions it also increases the complexity as well as the difficulty for integration tests and error localization. In this paper, we present a conceptual platform which allows to establish references between different development and test phase items in a developer-friendly way. It revolves around two self-developed tools supported by an extensive AUTOSAR knowledge base. The system creates inter-connectivity so that it becomes easier to locate the actual origin of a misbehavior or to find a test error manifestation in the actual end system for developers and testers alike.