Automotive Requirements Validation and Traceability Analysis With AQL Queries

Abstract

Modern passenger cars are facing an increase in customer demands on infotainment and driver assistance systems. The growing amount of driving assistance functions increases the complexity of mechanical, electronic and software systems. Distributed and interdisciplinary automotive design teams are mostly specialized in subsystems. Therefore, the overall passenger car view can get out of focus. Effects of local changes and design decisions on the overall passenger car could be underrated. Conflicts and unresolved cross-cutting issues may arise. An integrated UML model-based description for the overall passenger car development is proposed in this paper, facilitating specification analysis based on the Acceleo Query Language (AQL). We show how model analysis can then be automated to improve design model quality and reduce or detect unintended side effects of design changes. The proposed methodology supports traceability of design artifacts in a systematic way. It has been prototypically implemented as an extension of Eclipse. Its utilization is briefly demonstrated with an application example.