Requirements engineering in the development of innovative automotive embedded software systems

The proportion of software systems in the cars of today has increased rapidly, resulting in a considerable boost in value-added in the automotive domain. In the meantime, the vehicular features realized through software have come to represent an integrant differentiating factor between the products of the various car producers. And it is not only comfort functionalities that are concerned, but also security- and safety-relevant applications such as ABS or the airbag. Hence the development of customer-oriented software with high and reliable quality now plays a more and more important role. In this contribution our experiences gained in the development of specifications for innovative automotive software systems are presented. Requirements engineering methods and processes in the development of innovations differ from the development of established systems the more the innovative system encompasses different domains: the commitment of domain experts is hence needed. We describe specific challenges in this context and sketch some burning issues open to research to meet the problems we are currently facing.