Template-Driven and Hardware-Centric Cross-Domain E/E Architecture Simulation

Abstract

Due to various trends in the automotive sector, such as autonomous driving and electrification, the number of Electric/Electronic (E/E) components has risen in both hardware and software. This has led to an increase in certification requirements, which cannot be fulfilled without simulation anymore [1]. Different approaches have emerged trying to master this issue. However, for supporting early design decisions in the E/E development, these are either domain-specific or too elaborate. In this paper, we demonstrate an approach to realize early design decisions through a cross-domain simulation of E/E architectures, regarding the environment, scenarios, vehicle physics, the scheduling of software components and the power supply net. We use static E/E architecture hardware models, consisting of Electronic Control Units (ECUs), sensors, actuators and the wiring harness, as the base for the structure of our simulation models. The individual E/E components are linked to parameterizable simulation model templates to facilitate scalable execution. Moreover, scenarios are used for model reduction and supply the simulation model with stimuli. The simulation model is synthesized in an automated manner. For the evaluation, we simulate the power consumption of an electric vehicle, dependent on different loads. It shows that considering hardware aspects in early design phases uncovers errors that would have been noticed much later, e.g. when using virtual Hardware In the Loop (vHIL) methods. We also investigate the scalability of our approach. As E/E architecture modeling tool, we use Vector PREEvision and for the simulation Mathworks Simulink.