Engineering of cyber-physical systems in the automotive context: Case study of a range prediction assistant

Abstract

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are complex systems that combine features from different domains, such as control engineering, mechanical engineering or software engineering. Development of such CPS requires methods and tools from various disciplines, using different formalisms. Furthermore, for efficient development of these CPS, the engineering tools ideally support the whole development cycle and the life cycle of the CPS. This calls for a Systems Engineering approach to tackle the complexity of the engineering task under the constraints of short time-to-market. This paper presents a case study on the development of a CPS in the automotive context, where an assistant for estimating the range of an electric vehicle is developed. This case study illustrates the benefits of a modern tool-chain that is based on the Systems Engineering approach. In addition, an outlook is given on the development of similar tool-chains for the domain of automotive production planning. The benefits from applying open tool-chains in the engineering of CPS in the automotive domain is discussed.