What is
MODISTARC ? |
MODISTARC is an ESPRIT project
Esprit, the
information technologies (IT) programme, is an integrated programme of industrial R&D
projects and technology take-up measures. It is managed by DGIII, the Directorate General
for Industry of the European Commission.
Objectives and results
The main goal of the MODISTARC project is to support the effort of the European car industry towards the development and standardisation of networking architectures. Through the OSEK/VDX consortium activities, the European industry has issued three new standards defining respectively the OSEK/VDX Operating System, Communication and Network Management. These specifications describe the applicable services and protocols and define the associated APIs. They intend to fulfil the two major goals of the OSEK/VDX initiative:
· firstly: enable portability of applications to ECUs coming from different suppliers,
· secondly: enable interoperability of interconnected ECUs in a distributed automotive system.
The MODISTARC project aims to help the European car industry to keep its leading position in the network based car architectures by providing the relevant test methods and tools to assess the conformance of OSEK/VDX implementations. To achieve these objectives, the following steps have been defined:
Conformance testing methodology
The MODISTARC partners intend to develop a
conformance testing methodology adapted to the constraints of the automotive environment.
A document has been issued under the responsibility of Thomson-CSF Detexis and
Forschungszentrum Informatik Karlsruhe (FZI) as a conclusion of the discussions. It serves
as the basis for the development of the test specifications and test tools. It is made available as an
OSEK/VDX technical document. The main results will be largely advertised through
publications and conferences.
Test suites specifications
The OSEK/VDX test suites version 1.0 and
version 2.0 are specified in order to allow the development of conformance tools. The
specifications have been issued by FZI for the OS and by Thomson-CSF Detexis for the
Communication and Network Management, with assistance of the other partners. These
documents become an OSEK/VDX standard since the end of the project. Their ownership has
been transferred to the OSEK/VDX consortium. They are publicly available and free of
charge on the OSEK/VDX server.
Certification tools
Certification tools implementing the OSEK/VDX
test suites have been developed. They are able to assess conformance of both OSEK/VDX
independent software and ECU embedded software after appropriate customisation.
Certification tools have been developed by FZI for the OS and by Thomson-CSF Detexis for
the Communication and Network Management. They will be marketed and proposed to every
company or organisation wishing to produce its own OSEK/VDX implementation.
OSEK/VDX
implementations
In order to validate the certification tools
against actual OSEK/VDX implementations, some project partners have adapted or completed
their existing implementations to make them compliant with the versions 2.0 of the
specifications. Motorola does the work on their PC software. Sagem, Siemens AG and
Siemens Automotive build ECU prototypes based on the layered networking architecture
defined by the OSEK/VDX consortium. These prototypes will be representatives of the future
products the companies plan to market.
Tool demonstration
A comprehensive demonstration is undertaken
to show the relevance of the applied conformance methodology and to validate the
certification tools. Firstly, each company having produced an OSEK/VDX implementation will
assesses its conformance using the certification tools. PSA has assessed the test suites
relevance and completeness on a test platform interconnecting OSEK/VDX prototypes.
Interoperability of OSEK/VDX implementations and portability of PSA’s test
application on the various prototypes are demonstrated. A report on the
demonstration will be widely broadcasted.
Relations to the
OSEK/VDX consortium
The work on the MODISTARC project has been
done in close co-operation with the OSEK/VDX consortium. Most technical decisions have
been taken during joint meetings with the OSEK/VDX certification group. The IIIT
(Institute of Industrial Information Technology) at the University of Karlsruhe has been
in charge of reporting project progress to the OSEK/VDX organisation and conversely has
brought information and feedback from all other working groups to MODISTARC. Furthermore,
both organisations intend to jointly participate in the promotion of the standards and
tools produced by MODISTARC. This may concern the car industry or other sectors of
activity inside and outside Europe.
Final Public Report on MODISTARC project
As part of the MODISTARC project, a final
public report has been compiled, shortly describing the role of the respective partners
within the MODISTARC project. Each company or institution is responsable for their
respective section or contribution to this document. The final public report is publicly available.