Exploring Automotive Stakeholder Requirements for Architecture Optimization Support

In automotive system design, system architects increasingly use model-based approaches for defining product line architectures (PLAs). This trend is strongly supported by the emergence of domain standards like EAST-ADL and AUTOSAR that facilitate a system design approach based on systematic reuse. In our work, we focus on the automated exploration of PLA design spaces by means of multi-objective optimization and ask what are challenges that stakeholders face as part of this design task. Optimizing PLA design spaces shares certain challenges with conventional architecture optimization, like conflicting quality goals and potentially vast design spaces. However, PLA optimization exacerbates these challenges by an additional layer of complexity in the system architecture, due to product line variability in the system. Our main focus in this paper is on achieving a better understanding of the stakeholder requirements on a support infrastructure for automated PLA design space exploration based on PLA system models. We also address the challenges that stakeholders must overcome when integrating such an approach into an existing process landscape. For that purpose, we conducted a study with automotive industry experts and analyzed the findings using the qualitative data analysis methods of Grounded Theory. Based on the study results, we derive a set of challenges for the realization and integration of automated and semi-automated PLA design space exploration in industrial environments.