An Effective Model-Based Development Process Using Simulink/Stateflow for Automotive Body Control Electronics

The ever-increasing complexity and cost of automotive electrical systems are driving the change in automotive electronics development from traditional approaches to model-based methodology and processes. In this paper, we present an effective model-based development process particularly suitable for dealing with changes to existing designs, or “feature change” types of projects, in which the design and implementation procedures are often imposed by constraints due to the mandatory adoptions of legacy code and carryover designs. The new process herein involves creating “executable” requirements and functional models, generating test scenarios and/or cases, using the test cases for clarifying customer requirement specifications, using the clarified test cases for testing at various levels, and verifying the hardware-in-the-loop test results captured from the proprietary automatic test equipment. The test scenarios/cases that play the central role in this model-based process are created, supplemented, modified, and maintained throughout the product development lifecycle. We have successfully applied this development process to production projects.