Product line based reuse methodology for developing generic ECU

Abstract

As an important application domain of embedded software, automotive software is playing a more important role within automotive industry. There are some essential issues to be resolved; managing software complexity, reducing software cost, and shortening time-to-market. An effective solution to these issues is to reuse generic Electronic Control Units (ECUs) in building various ECUs rather than building every piece from scratch. Generic ECU is an ECU level reuse unit which consists of automotive components and embeds variability. Among the reuse approaches, Product Line Engineering (PLE) can be effectively applied in developing generic ECUs. However, current PLE methodologies do not effectively support developing generic ECUs, Hence, in this paper, we first define a meta-model of generic ECUs. Then, we define variability types and variation points for generic ECUs. Based on the meta-model and variability types, we propose a product line process for developing ECUs. To assess the applicability of the proposed meta-model and the PLE process, we present the case study of developing an automotive ECU for Window Control System (WCS). © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.