CORDIS Archive

DRIVE (26938)

The cost pressure due to the legal requirements for emission reduction, fuel economy and onboard diagnosis systems on one side and the growing competition in the globalised market on the other has been answered by the automotive industry with higher integrated systems comprising a rapidly increasing complexity. However, currently the requirements on the control systems targeted for automotive applications in the area of engine, gear box and chassis control are changing dramatically. They are increasing in a pace not foreseen even less than two years ago.

Beside a cost reducing higher system integration and an ever more powerful 'Automotive' microcontroller, a new beginning for system design and development is required not only to significantly reduce time to market but also to achieve higher featured systems at lower cost.

Two innovations in particular are necessary to yield this goal:

• A design emphasis favouring up-front system simulation and code generators instead of the traditional design/build/test loop.
• Hierarchically layered modular system concepts to handle the future very high system complexity and at the same time to achieve new levels of cost-efficiency, inter-operability, reliability, plug-and-play usability, as well as safety.

For doing so, the necessary tools and their interfaces will have to be available to provide an integrated Development Platform addressing seamlessly all required stages of the development life-cycle, i.e. supporting the downfall from a high CASE-level design entry and simulation/validation, rapid prototyping down to the target hardware for debugging and calibration as well as the upflow by feeding the data collected by the ICE for system analysis and debugging all the way back to the entry CASE level.

The target of the Project DRIVE, realised by joint and mutual undertaking of a consortium of seven Partners comprising all members of the automotive food-chain - ROVER/UK (Car Manufacturer), SIEMENS AUTOMOTIVE/FR (System Supplier), SIEMENS SEMICONDUCTORS/D (Silicon Vendor), ASHLING/IRL (System Performance Analyser), S&P MEDIA/IRL (CASE Tool Supplier), SYNDESIS/GR (Fuzzy Logic CASE Tool for Design and Calibration), and WIND RIVER SYSTEMS/UK (RTOS and Emulation Platform), is to substantiate a landmark-setting answer to this challenge by means of three ambitious key objectives:

1. Specify and construct an 'Integrated Powertrain Management System' combining the Engine Controller and the Transmission Controller into one 'Integrated Control System' located in one ECU which is leapfrogging any currently available system for these applications.
2. Specify and construct a 32bit 'Automotive' MicroController' based on the results from the preceding projects RTA and DOLPHIN with highly featured Automotive Peripherals targeted to outperform any such component currently foreseen in the market segment.
3. Specify and develop an unprecedented 'Integrated Development Platform' having as the core feature an 'Open Frame' based on well recognised industry standards like the open CORBA-APIs and Tornado-APIs. The anticipated implementation will be capable to integrate almost all tools foreseen to be used in the development life-cycle for automotive systems after the year 2000.

All the technical results and the 'Development Platform' will be validated and assessed as part of the Project.

The project DRIVE is going to perform a quantum step with respect to Europe's automotive system development capacity. As such, the overall goal of the Project has a wider span aside to create a particular product. It is to substantiate and to validate a landmark-setting paradigm to sustain Europe's automotive industry in its effort to build system solutions meeting the costs and performance requirements expected for the beginning of the next century. DRIVE is definitely recognised by all Partners to be extraordinarily ambitious but seriously necessary for Europe.

Start date: May 1998
End date: August 2000

Project Coordinator:

Lothar Schrader
Siemens AG
St. Martin Strasse 76
81514 München
Germany
Tel: 0049-89-63683450
Fax: 0049-89-63681971
Email: schrader@siemens.de

Partners:

Siemens (Germany)
Ashling (Ireland)
Rover (United Kingdom)
Siemens automotive (France)
S&P Media (Ireland)
Syndesis (Greece)
Wind River Systems (United Kingdom)