An integrated approach to developing automotive climate control systems

Abstract

The development of embedded systems for complex cyber-physical products involves multiple processes and disciplines - from project management and requirements engineering, to configuration, integration, simulation, test and verification management. Traditional model based systems engineering approaches, where generated models and simulations are largely isolated from one another, make it almost impossible to get a 'holistic' view of a complete product or systems behavior. While most frameworks for model-based design support a single discipline, what is actually needed is a framework that can handle the multi-disciplinary architecture and systems integration of the complete product or system. There is a need for standards to enable the combination of cross-discipline design efforts in a common environment that fully supports modeling, simulation and embedded software generation and validation. This paper outlines an integrated approach where the Requirement, Functional, Logical, and Physical (RFLP) decomposition of complex cyber-physical products is achieved in a fully integrated 2D / 3D collaborative systems development environment. We will outline how the Modelica1 language, in conjunction with the open 'Functional Mockup2' and AUTOSAR3 concepts, can be leveraged by a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) based systems integration platform, to define and evaluate the functional definition of a complete product or system. We will illustrate this approachthrough an example of an automotive climate control system development process.