New software for individual vehicle

Product line technology is used in the automobile industry for the efficient production of highly individualized vehicles. The substantial idea consists of developing one platform, which is the base for individual products. The products are built using different components, just like a construction kit.

Project VEIA or Distributed Development and Integration of Automotive Product Lines is a research project within the " Forschungs Offensive Software Engineering 2006". The goal of the project is the development of a practical method for distributed engineering and integration of automotive product lines. The method is based on concepts for product line engineering and is geared to concrete requirements of industrial development processes.

This approach can be adapted for the use in development of software systems, using flexible systematization of the requirements, reference architecture aligned to variability and re-usable software components.

In the future, vehicles will also be personalized as their owner. Everyone can compose his vehicle depending on its needs. To define exactly these functions individually, more and more software will be used to help the user to make these choices. German researchers are developing a support system software production: a system to create the "product lines (software). Led by the Fraunhofer Institute in systems engineering and software (ISST) and conducted under the research project Veia (discrete development and integration of product lines automobile), the prototype developed is currently being tested in the BMW company.

Specification of interfaces of typical automotive applications from all domains in terms of syntax and semantics, which should serve as a standard for application software. Such as;

Extend product offering and increase product differentiation Stable or decreasing development costs Strengthen brand image in the market
Propose specific features and functions across the product range
Ensure long term competitiveness, as well as presence in emerging markets, through cost reduction
Increase quality and reduce “non quality” costs.

So far, to distinguish vehicles, the same software standards were used for all vehicles. However, as each manufacturer assigns different characteristics to their models, only a piece of software was used effectively for the composition of a vehicle. To have available the entire program represents "an unnecessary burden," according to Dr. Martin Große-Rhode of ISST. That’s why ISST has developed jointly with BMW Group, the company of Engineering software PROSTEP IMP GmbH and the Technical University of Munich software tool "v.control." It creates software from different components using a modular system. This gives rise to product lines, ie specific software to focus on the relevant following the manufacturers. Simon Euring BMW, the integration of product lines in developing software helps improve efficiency in customizing vehicles.

The project Veia, supported by the Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) represents an example for the implementation of research results in industry: technical concepts of lines of software products, development of software architecture, development system from models beyond its practical use in the automotive industry, this project allows for considerable developments in computer terms.

Category:

• Auto Innovation

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