The rapid development of electronic systems in automotive vehicles has been driven for decades
by constantly growing requirements of legislation for environmental protection, as well as rising
demands of the end-user to improve fuel economy, safety, driving comfort and driving
excitement. The manufacturers of mobile work machines also see themselves increasingly
confronted with these requirements. Can Robert Bosch GmbH use the technical experiences
from automobiles also in this area to efficiently develop high-quality electronic systems, which
are future-oriented and be able to flexibly adapt the systems to different platforms?
The number of calibration parameters for example in an engine management system has risen
within the last 20 years from a few hundred to over 7000. Therefore, the engineering effort for
software and their calibration has increased dramatically. In the meantime for manufacturers of
vehicles with low volumes, the engineering costs are comparable with the actual cost for the
system components. Therefore, the future challenge will be the re-use of software functions
engineered by manufacturers and suppliers for different vehicles and systems. In the automotive
industry this attempt is being undertaken by different companies under the name AUTOSAR.
Additionally, the software development is done in compliance to standards like CMMI or SPICE
which ensure a consistent, high quality product. The exchange of information between control
units makes the interaction of the systems much more complex and asks for more efficient, faster
data communication systems by new standards, such as the bus system FlexRay. When electronic
devices are viewed with a holistic approach, a large potential is evident for manufactures and
their end-user.