The role of software engineering in future automotive systems development

The amount and complexity of software in automotive systems is constantly increasing. Today’s luxury cars include numerous electronic control units. A large part of the functionality of these units is driven by software. In the future even more software-intensive automotive systems are expected as automotive manufacturers and suppliers tend to integrate and combine applications on more powerful platforms. The increasing amount and complexity of software in these platforms has led to the situation where software engineering has become an essential discipline within automotive systems development. This paper identifies essential areas of software engineering that will have a significant impact on future automotive systems and systems development. Particularly, it discusses how the software engineering discipline can be developed in the context of overall automotive systems development while considering essential requirements and constraints that are or will become prevalent in this domain.