Using RTAI/LXRT for partitioning in a prototype implementation of the DECOS architecture

The steady increase in electronics in automotive systems in order to meet the customers expectation of a cars functionality has led to the development of integrated architectures, as already partly deployed in avionics. Integrated architectures overcome the "1 Function - I Electronic Control Unit (ECU)" design philosophy by providing an infrastructure that allows the sharing of ECUs between multiple applications. As a consequence, integrated systems promise massive cost savings through the reduction of resource duplication. In addition, integrated systems permit an optimal interplay of application subsystems, reliability improvements with respect to wiring and connectors, and overcome limitations for spare components and redundancy management. In this paper we present an overview of the DECOS integrated architecture and describe a prototype setup. In particular, we describe how inner component partitioning is provided using the open source RTAI/LXRT Linux operating system. We exploit the functionality of this operating system to be suitable for the DECOS architecture and devise a static dispatching technique that forms the basis for the multiplexing of available resources between applications.