AUTOSAR
More info
- Released
- 2003
- Type
- Automotive software standard
- Website
- autosar.org
The car industry's shared software architecture for control units, meant to let the same code move between suppliers' hardware.
A modern car carries fifty to a hundred electronic control units, and until the early 2000s every supplier wrote its own base software for each one. In 2003 BMW, Bosch, Continental, DaimlerChrysler, Siemens VDO and Volkswagen joined forces to standardise the layers beneath the application. The result splits an ECU into application components, a runtime environment (RTE) and basic software (BSW) running an OSEK-derived real-time operating system.
The Classic Platform is statically configured C, largely generated from XML. The Adaptive Platform (2017) targets the powerful central computers that run driver assistance, using POSIX and C++. AUTOSAR's reputation is that the configuration tools cost more than the hardware, and the XML files run longer than the code.