Automotive software architecture: Migration challenges from an event-triggered to a time-triggered communication scheme

Automotive electronics are organized as complex distributed systems connecting up to 70 electronics control units. One challenge of the TEODACS project is to understand the challenges related to the design, integration and validation of communication architectures based on the FlexRay protocol. Based on a detailed explanation of the time-triggered concepts, the focus of this paper is set on the integration problems of this new paradigm within a typical automotive software environment. Furthermore, the experience gained during the design and configuration of our two prototyping platforms as well as the design flow enhancement performed within this research project are presented.