AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture - An Industry-Wide Initiative to Manage the Complexity of Emerging Automotive E/E-Architectures

The current automotive electric/ electronic (E/E) architecture landscape is characterized by proprietary solutions, which seldom allow the exchange of applications between both automotive OEMs and their suppliers. It is apparent that on the basis of a continued exponential growth in functional scope, further proliferation of proprietary solutions will consume more and more resources and may become difficult to control. AUTOSAR is a joint initiative of several major industry players and aims to prepare for the increase in functional scope. This paper presents an overview over the development partnership as well as the technical concept and methodology. It concludes that introduction of an industrywide standard of automotive E/E architecture is indeed vitally important and it is that, which will allow the industry players to concentrate on innovation rather than wasting effort when adapting existing components to different environments. The AUTOSAR standard will thus help to secure market attractiveness and open new and different business opportunities for OEMs and their suppliers alike.