From product architectures to a managed automotive software product line architecture

Abstract

To keep the software development for vehicles cost efficient, software components are reused for different variants as well as for succeeding generations. Furthermore, cost reductions are achieved by software sharing between the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and the suppliers. However, as a consequence of the blackboxed view caused by software sharing, no common detailed software product line architecture specification for the Electronic Control Unit (ECU) software exists, as it would be required for analyzing the quality of the product line architecture, planning changes on the product line architecture, checking the compliance between the product architecture and the product line architecture, and therefore, avoiding architecture erosion. Thus, after several product generations, software erosion is growing steadily, resulting in an increasing effort of reusing software components, and planning of further development. Here, we propose an approach for repairing an eroded software consisting of a set of product architectures by applying strategies for recovery and discovery of the product line architecture. Furthermore, we give a methodology for a long-term manageable, plannable, and reuseable software product line architecture for automotive software systems.