Measuring the constraint complexity of automotive embedded software systems

The rapid growth of software-based functionalities has made automotive Electronic Control Units (ECUs) significantly complex. Factors affecting software complexity of components embedded in an ECU depend not only on the interface and interaction properties, but also on the added constraints associated with their usage and stringent timing requirements. Traditional constraint complexity measures are not adequate for embedded real-time systems as they do not yet sufficiently provide a measure of the timing constraints described by AUTOSAR languages. This paper presents a method for measuring the structural and timing constraint complexity of automotive embedded software systems at the specification level.