ABSTRACT
The automotive industry is today the sixth largest economy in the world, producing around 70 million cars every year and making an important contribution to government revenues all around the world [1]. As for other industries, significant improvements in functionalities, performance, comfort, safety, etc. are provided by electronic and software technologies. Indeed, since 1990, the sector of embedded electronics, and more precisely embedded software, has been increasing at an annual rate of 10%. In 2006, the cost of an electronic-embedded system represented at least 25% of the total cost of a car and more than 35% for a high-end model [2]. This cost is equally shared between electronic and software components. These general trends have led to currently embedding up to 500 MB on more than 70 microprocessors [3] connected on communication networks. The following are some of the various examples. Figure 1.1 shows an electronic architecture embedded in a Laguna (source: Renault French carmaker) illustrating several computers interconnected and controlling the engine, 1_2the wipers, the lights, the doors, and the suspension or providing a support for interaction with the driver or the passengers. In 2004, the embedded electronic system of a Volkswagen Phaeton was composed of more than 10,000 electrical devices, 61 microprocessors, three controller area networks (CAN) that support the exchanges of 2500 pieces of data, several subnetworks, and one multimedia bus [4]. In the Volvo S70, two networks support the communication between the microprocessors controlling the mirrors, those controlling the doors and those controlling the transmission system and, for example, the position of the mirrors is automatically controlled according to the sense the vehicle is going and the volume of the radio is adjusted to the vehicle speed, information provided, among others, by the antilock braking system (ABS) controller. In a recent Cadillac, when an accident causes an airbag to inflate, its microcontroller emits a signal to the embedded global positioning system (GPS) receiver that then communicates with the cell phone, making it possible to give the vehicle’s position to therescueservice. Thesoftware code size of thePeugeot CX model(source: PSA Peugeot Citroen French carmarker) was 1.1 KB in 1980, and 2 MB for the 607 model in 2000. These are just a few examples, but there are many more that could illustrate this very large growth of embedded electronic systems in modern vehicles.
