Definition and Generation of Data Exchange Formats in AUTOSAR

In this paper we present a methodology supporting the definition of data models on basis of a limited set of well-known UML features, thereby allowing these models to be created and discussed by a large group of domain experts. A transformation is then defined from such a platform independent UML model to XML schema, which exceeds the configuration possibilities of comparable approaches like XMI. This enables the generic reproduction of a wide range of existing XML languages and hence supports reverse-engineering legacy schemas and DTDs into well-structured UML models. The overview of an actual implementation of the generic methodology finally demonstrates the practical applicability or our approach. The work described in this paper is part of the AUTOSAR development partnership, an international effort to standardize automotive software infrastructure. The resulting XML schema is used today as the official AUTOSAR XML data exchange format.