a zone architecture, containing a central network of
servers. Sensors and actuators are connected to the
network via so-called zone ECUs. These in turn are
connected to the central computing units like servers,
which ultimately process the data. The final state of
in vehicle network is nearly the same as the zone ar-
chitecture. To the central powerful server units, hard-
ware could be added and associated services runs on
one of the server units. Unlike the zone architecture,
the zone controllers are no longer required. The last
two expansion stages of the E/E architecture (Electri-
cal/Electronic Architecture) enable a modular expan-
sion of a vehicle with various services and hardware
through Plug&Play. This is a key aspect in the de-
velopment of a next generation communication net-
work. Vehicles are expected to be more personalized
in the future resulting in a broad spectrum of config-
uration options. Therefore, variety of combinations
requires the automatic configuration of a network to
meet modularity requirements.(Carlson et al., 2019)
Due to the modularity of the system, current
projects such as the A3F project which is explained
in the section 2, aim at a service-oriented network
architecture. This means, applications are supposed
to be installed on a vehicle without having to physi-
cally visit a service point or the manufacturer of the
vehicle. In the future, this will take place through a
so-called App Store on the vehicle. Similar to smart-
phones, this includes a pool of applications to extend
the functionality of a car. The ability of vehicle hard-
ware extension through Plug&Play also implicates the
need of a network reconfiguration from a single unit
accessible to all components within the system. In or-
der to fully integrate and support the hardware func-
tionality into the new network from a software per-
spective, data streams, port rules and additional ser-
vices must be configured and provided for the de-
sired functionality. The A3F project follows the con-
cept of software-defined networking, similar to what
is known from software-defined networks
4
(SDN) or
Software Oriented Architecture
5
(SOA). This are con-
cepts about building a service-oriented architecture
managed from a central location. This principle can
be applied to the desired software extension of the
system. However, this approach also involves risks.
The number of different configurations possible in the
system increases due to software extensions and dif-
ferent applications. For example, 10 services were
available to extend a system with 5 server units, there
were already 1001 possible combinations.
(n + m − 1)!
((n − 1)! ∗ m!)
=
(5 + 10 − 1)!
((5 − 1)! ∗ 10!)
= 1001
4
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6994333
5
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4026892
Since far more than these are planned for the future,
system configuration can no longer be done for each
service individually evaluated and checked for possi-
ble errors in the end. Using SDN’s approach, config-
uration can be done from at least one central location.
As of now, there are several approaches to ensure a
verification and validation process, but no practicable
solution for such complexity.
Another problem is represented by technologies
like CAN, LIN and FlexRay mentioned earlier in this
paper. In the future, these technologies will reach
their limits in an attempt to meet the requirements
as described for a new vehicle network. The data
to be sent can raise up to several gigabit per second
and must be sent in real time from a source Elec-
tronic Control Unit (ECU) to the destination ECU in
a system. For communication within the car, there-
fore it is necessary to use a modern medium. Since
2010, several major automotive manufacturers have
been working on integrating Ethernet into modern au-
tomotive architectures. However, Ethernet should not
completely replace all bus systems but rather comple-
ment them in order to transfer large amounts of data
between the devices as efficiently as possible. But not
only the automobile manufacturers have researched
for the integration of Ethernet, also several universi-
ties and key players in the global automotive industry,
such as Continental, Bosch and Vector, are convinced
of the necessity of Ethernet in the automobile (Stein-
bach et al., 2011)(Bello, 2011)(Eisele, 2018).
2 RELATED WORK
Over the last two years, the A3F research group men-
tioned in section I has developed a network man-
agement system which independently of components
configures a vehicle network. The project is a cooper-
ation between Continental Automotive GmbH and the
University OTH Regensburg. The research group de-
cided to define three expansion stages for in-vehicle
networks in terms of autonomous driving. The last
two states are called Next Generation Networks, pos-
sible network concepts are displayed in figure 1 on
timeline starting in the year 2025.
• The first stage is to configure a network at the end
of the manufacturing process line. This represents
the today standard in automotive manufacturing.
• Secondly, the vehicle shall be reconfigured during
functionalities have been added. In this extension
the automatic process is used only if the vehicle
is in a safe state. Looking forward, there is still
a need for a precise definition of which state rep-
resents a safe state. An example for a save state
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