Vertical Integration between Control and Communication Architectures

Integration of various sub-systems has been one of the most time consuming and costly endeavor in the automotive domain. For example, in automotive industry the vehicle control system rely on system components manufactured by different vendors with their own software and hardware. What is needed is a new system science that enables the reliable and cost effective integration of independently developed system components. In particular, there is urgent need for theory and tools for cost effective methods to: (1) design, analyze, and verify components at various levels of abstraction, including system level, software architecture level, subject to constraints from other levels; (2) analyze and understand interactions between vehicle control system and other sub-systems such as engine, transmission, steering, wheel, break, suspension; (3) ensure safety, stability, performance while minimizing vehicle cost to the consumers.This position paper addresses the following four emerging challenges associated with real-time architectures and associated design methodologies for reliable, available, maintainable, timely, safe, and secure embedded, software-intensive, electronic automotive control systems thatinteract deeply with the physical world.