A Taxonomy and Systematic Approach for Automotive System Architectures - From Functional Chains to Functional Networks

Technological advances enable realization of increasingly complex customer features in the automotive sector. Traffic jam pilot or predictive energy management depict examples of recently introduced features that span across different conventional vehicle domains. The increased interconnectivity and functional complexity impose new requirements on the automotive systems engineering practice. The resulting challenge is to develop integrated approaches that combine the established procedures with innovative techniques. To address this challenge, we present a comprehensive taxonomy for existing automotive features. Based on this characterization, established industrial and new research approaches for logical system architectures are consolidated. We introduce levels of hierarchy in the logical system architecture to facilitate systems engineering of innovative functions and highly distributed features. The systematic approach provides a novel rationale for the evolution from functional chains to functional networks in the automotive industry.