An Automated Electric Vehicle Prototype Showing New Trends in Automotive Architectures

The automotive domain is challenged by the increasing importance of Information Technology (IT) based functions. To show the possibilities of modern IT systems, a demonstrator car was developed in RACE (Robust and Reliant Automotive Computing Environment for Future eCars) based on a completely redesigned E/E architecture, which supports the integration of mixed-criticality components and offers features like Plug&Play. This paper presents the architecture and components of this vehicle prototype, which is equipped with modern systems such as Steer-by-Wire without mechanical fallback. It was designed to support future driver assistance systems, e.g. to carry out autonomous parking maneuvers onto an inductive charging station, a task, which is hard to achieve accurately enough for a human driver. Therefore, a special emphasis lies on the description of the sensor set for automated operation.