Automotive Systems Modelling with Vitruvius

Model-driven technologies are widely used in the development of systems in the automotive domain. Although modelling tools and code generation increase the development speed and the quality of the developed system in general, the availability of several modelling languages for different stages of the development process also introduces additional problems: Developers use several models to describe the same system on different levels of abstraction, which serve as documentation, basis for code generation, but also for model-based analyses of system properties such as security, performance, or reliability. If models are modified independently, inconsistencies can arise, which lead to incorrect results of these analyses, complicate the implementation of new features, and create errors at later stages in development that are costly to fix. In this paper, we apply the model-based Vitruvius approach, which preserves consistency in heterogeneous modelling environments, to a scenario of automotive systems development. The scenario includes the modelling standards SysML, AMALTHEA and ASCET. We show, at the example of an onboard controlling unit, how the Vitruvius approach can be used to increase consistency in automotive system development and reduce the accidental complexity that arises for developers who have to work with heterogeneous modelling languages.