A Comparative Case Study of Distributed Network Architectures for Different Automotive Applications

In recent years, networking issues have become more and more important in the design of vehicle control systems. In the beginning of the 1990s a vehicle control system was built up by ‘simple’ computer nodes exchanging ‘simple’ and relatively non-critical data. Today we have moved into distributed vehicle control systems with functions spanning several nodes from different vendors. These systems are running on communication architectures consisting of different types of communication busses providing different functionality, from advanced control to entertainment. The challenge is cost efficient development of these systems, with respect to business, functionality, architecture, standards and quality for the automotive industry. In this article we present three different architectures – used in passenger cars, trucks, and construction equipment. Based on these case studies with different business and functionality demands, we will provide an analysis identifying commonalities, differences, and discussing how the different demands are reflected in the network architectures.