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Optional software-based features (for example, to provide active safety, infotainment, etc.) are increasingly becoming a significant cost driver in automotive systems. In state-of-the-art production techniques, these optional features are built into the vehicle during assembly. This does not give the customer the flexibility to choose the specific set of features as per their requirement. They either have to buy a pre-bundled option that may or may not satisfy their preferences or are unable to find an exact combination of features from the inventory provided by a dealership. Alternatively, they have to pre-order a car from the manufacturer, which could result in a substantial delay. Therefore, it is important to improve the flexibility of delivering the optional features to customers. Towards this objective, the vehicle could be configured with the desired options at the dealership, when the customer requires them.

Modern vehicles can have millions of lines of software, for vehicle control, infotainment, etc. The correctness and quality of the software play a key role in the safety of whole vehicles. In order to assure the safety, engineers give an effort to prove correctness of individual subsystems or their integration using testing or verification methods. One needs to eventually certify that the developed vehicle as a whole is indeed safe using the artifacts and evidences produced throughout the development cycle. Such a certification process helps to increase the safety confidence of the developed software and reduce OEM’s liability. However, software certification in automotive domain is not yet well established, compared to other safety-critical domains, such as avionics and medical devices. At the same time, safety-relevant standards and techniques, including ISO 26262 and assurance cases, have been well adopted.

In this paper, we propose algorithms for cost minimization of physical wires that are used to connect electronic devices in the vehicle. The wiring cost is one of the most important drivers of electrical architecture selection. Our algorithms perform wire routing from a source device to a destination device through harnesses, by selecting the optimized wire size. In addition, we provide optimized splice allocation with limited constraints. Based on the algorithms, we develop a tool which is integrated into an off-the-shelf optimization and workflow system-level design tool. The algorithms and the tool provide an efficient, flexible, scalable, and maintainable approach for cost analysis and architecture selection.