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Automotive systems are obviously becoming more and more complex. In fact, a typical vehicle is built using various communication networks, many electronic units and a never ending amount of software! The main problem automakers face now is related to the integration of different distributed functionalities, and often these functionalities are based on software. For these reasons it is very important to have an approach at “system” level in order to assure that the complete vehicle conforms to requirements and the statement of needs. It is also important that the testing phases assure a complete coverage of all requirements, in order to verify all system aspects. In this context, the software, in general, plays an important role during all phases of system development: from requirement analysis, system architecture definition, system implementation and testing phases. The software is generally acquired by external suppliers and is already programmed in the electronic devices.

In the definition of automotive multiplex system architectures, several problems arise due to a lack of preciseness in the specification of customer defined functional requirements and devices characteristics. To cope with this problems, we propose to define a systematic flow of the design process and a structured organization of the information, that gives the system designers guidelines on how to make implementative and technological decisions about the architecture of a multiplex system. The purpose of this paper is to present a structured graph-based design procedure, that helps the system designers in the partitioning and modelling of the system, allowing them to define architectures more easily and helping them to estimate performance and costs of the system.