AUTOSAR – Equipped for Everything?

In the early era of microcomputer-based automotive electronics, a separate ECU was developed for each functional unit such as engine management or transmission control. Coordination with the other ECUs was implemented via control lines, e.g. lines carrying pulsewidth modulated signals. Growing functionality, however, was driving the number of control lines and their costs upwards. That is why, in 1983, Bosch began to develop a network protocol – the Controller Area Network, or CAN – which was implemented in a production vehicle for the first time in 1990. It enabled the exchange of large amounts of data between ECUs in real time. This, in turn, unleashed the creativity of development engineers in implementing many new convenience functions such as “Keyless Go” and enabled significant improvements in the areas of safety, fuel economy and exhaust emissions. However, the approach was still “one ECU for each function” – and each ECU was developed and produced by one supplier company. Whenever multiple ECUs from different manufacturers were involved in implementing a function, this required additional coordination effort and very extensive integration tests. Problems also occurred when an alternate supplier or new supplier was added for an ECU (e.g. for a new vehicle generation). This incurred additional coordination and testing effort. To improve this situation, automotive OEMs and suppliers founded the AUTOSAR consortium (AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture) in 2003. Its standardization would make it possible to integrate algorithms, in unmodified form, into the ECUs of different manufacturers, and this would support the distribution of functions to multiple ECUs much better.