Towards automotive virtualization

Virtualization has come a long way since its beginnings in the 1960s. Nowadays, Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) - or hypervisor-based virtualization of servers is the de facto standard in data centers and a building block of the cloud hype. In recent years, virtualization has also been adopted to embedded devices such as avionics systems and mobile phones. The first mass deployment of embedded virtualization can probably be seen in video game consoles, though. However, it is still not employed by automotive electronics. This is despite the fact that with the upcoming domain controller architecture, virtualization can yield benefits beyond a mere consolidation of a multitude of Electronic Control Units (ECUs) into a few Domain Controller Units (DCUs). This paper presents merits of automotive virtualization, especially as a foundation for DCUs.