A Proposal for an Automotive Architecture Framework for Volvo Cars

During the past twenty years vehicles have become more and more robot like, interpreting and exploiting input from various sensors to make decisions and finally commit actions that were previously made by humans. Such features will require continuous evolution and updates to ensure safety, security, and suitability for supporting drivers in an ever changing world. Modern vehicles can have over 100 Electronic Control Units (ECUs), which are small computers, together executing gigabytes of software. ECUs are connected to each other through several networks within the car, and in some cases also to the outside world. This need for addressing ever increasing complexity as well as for offering flexibility, support of continuous evolution, and very late changes in user visible features introduces new challenges for developing and maintaining a suitable electronic architecture. In this paper we report the current investigation of the Volvo Cars to create an architecture framework tailored to the needs of future vehicles.