4th International ICSE workshop onSoftware Engineering for Automotive SystemsMinneapolis, 26 May 2007www.infsec.ethz.ch/events/seas07/ |
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4th International ICSE workshop onSoftware Engineering for Automotive SystemsMinneapolis, 26 May 2007www.infsec.ethz.ch/events/seas07/ |
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The amount of software in cars grows exponentially. Driving forces of this development are the availability of cheaper and more powerful hardware as well as the demand for innovation through new functionality. The rapidly growing significance of software and software-based functionality is at the root of various challenges in the automotive industries. These concern their organization, definition of key competencies, processes, methods, tools, models, product structures, division of labor, logistics, maintenance, and long term strategies.
Within only thirty years, the amount of software has evolved from zero to tens of millions of lines of code. A current premium car, for instance, implements about 270 functions a user interacts with, deployed over about 70 embedded platforms. Altogether, the software amounts to about 100 megabytes of binary code. The next generation of upper class vehicles, hitting the market in about 5 years, is expected to run up to 1 gigabyte of software. This is comparable to what a typical desktop workstation runs today. Today, more than 80% of the innovations in a car come from computer systems; software has thus become a major contributor to the value of contemporary cars but software has also become an increasing cost factor.
One reason for this trend simply is that software enables the implementation of functionality deemed impossible just twenty years ago. Another reason is that electronics in cars help reduce gas consumption and increase performance, comfort and safety, as indicated by today's numbers of increasing traffic with decreasingly many serious accidents. Information processing technology cuts across all aspects of the car and is a persuasive, sophisticated and differentiating value addition to the product. Furthermore, software enables the car manufacturers and suppliers to tailor systems to particular customers' needs. In other words, software can help differentiate between cars. At least in principle, it is the software that also allows hardware to be reused across different cars. Other than hardware, software has an almost negligible replication cost, which is a further incentive to bet on software as a potential tool in cost-reduction while on the other hand the development costs of software are increasing dramatically.
The workshop, the fourth in a very successful series, will be concerned with all aspects of software engineering for automotive systems. Specifically, we target the integration problem that is a consequence of the vertical (or modular) division of labor in the manufacturing process: automotive systems consist of a number of independently specified and developed sub-systems that have to be integrated into the overall system. Due to constraints like intellectual property this integration is based on nothing but the specification and development artifacts such as interface descriptions. Because of safety and quality requirements on automotive software, this integration phase is of particular relevance for software development.
The workshop is intended to provide a discussion forum for researchers and practitioners working in or interested in the field of automotive software. The organizers and the program committee address both academia and industry to transfer techniques and methods from other domains to the applicability in embedded systems.
We address all facets of integration of independently developed software parts to one system with emphasis on the following aspects:
The last 5 years have exhibited another explosion of electronics integration into the typical vehicle. The pace of development and release of new electronics has more than doubled to continue the effort. A significant part of this integration occurred in the interior electronics systems and is complicated by an even more aggressive consumer electronics market.
This most recent explosion exposes several challenges to vehicle designers and the supplier network. Challenges of particular interest involve the creation of the Human Machine Interfaces (HMI) for the growing electronic devices as well as the techniques and responsibilities of developing the complicated software systems which implement these interfaces.
What practices and technologies are well suited to assist the OEMs and Suppliers in overcoming these challenges? How is the industry equipped to handle the growth of software development required to address these challenges?
slides