BASEMENT: A distributed real-time architecture for vehicle applications

The paper presents BASEMENT, a distributed real time architecture developed for vehicle internal use in the automotive industry. The BASEMENT concept is holistic, in the sense that it covers application development, as well as the hardware and software that provide execution and communication support. The key constituents of the concept are: resource sharing (multiplexing) of processing and communication resources; a guaranteed real time service for safety critical applications; a best effort service for nonsafety critical applications; a communication infrastructure providing efficient communication between distributed devices; and a program development methodology allowing resource independent and application oriented development of application software. A real time kernel supporting BASEMENT has been developed, together with two design tools: a system simulator and an offline scheduler. We illustrate BASEMENT system development by presenting an intelligent cruise control application.