A universal communication model for an automotive system integration platform

In this paper, we present a virtual integration platform based design methodology for distributed automotive systems. The platform, built within the 'Virtual Component Co-Design'' tool (VCC), provides the ability of distributing a given system functionality over an architecture so as to validate different solutions in terms of cost, safety requirements, and real-time constraints. The virtual platform constitutes the foundation for design decisions early in the development phase, therefore enabling decisive and competitive advantages in the development process. This paper focuses on one of the key-enablers of the methodology, the universal communication model (UCM). The UCM is defined at a level of abstraction that allows accurate estimates of the performance including the latencies over the bus network, and good simulation performance. In addition, due to the high level of reusability and parameterization of its components, it can be used as a framework for modeling the different communication protocols common in the automotive domain.