Dynamic Activation Timing Configuration for Product Line Development

Most automotive control systems have been developed by combining legacy Electronic Control Units (ECUs) with newly developed ECUs. We need to plan the product line to utilize as many legacy ECUs as possible to lower development costs of new vehicles. However, we must develop several new gateway ECUs per new vehicle because gateway ECUs depend on the placement of other ECUs and their combinations within the whole system. The reusable gateway ECUs are needed to lower development cost. However, there is a problem in that the worst case execution time (WCET) of relay processing may be impaired in typical methods that are synchronized with the communication cycle of time-triggered networks. Therefore, we propose a Dynamic Activation Timing Configuration (DATC) for product line development, which can dynamically calculate the activation timing of relay processing from the information on message routing, slot assignment, and time-triggered network. The gateway ECUs with DATC can be dynamically adjusted to new vehicles and improve the WCET of relay processing.