Extending OMNeT++ Towards a Platform for the Design of Future In-Vehicle Network Architectures

Abstract: In-vehicle communication technologies are evolving. While today's cars are equipped with fieldbusses to interconnect the various electronic control units, next generation vehicles have timing and bandwidth requirements that exceed the capacities. In particular Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and automated driving using high bandwidth sensors such as cameras, LIDAR or radar will challenge the in-car network. Automotive Ethernet is the most promising candidate to solve the upcoming challenges. But to design and evaluate new protocols, concepts, and architectures suitable analysis tools are required. Especially in the interim period with architectures using automotive Ethernet and legacy fieldbusses together, careful planning and design is of vital importance. Simulation can provide a good understanding of the expectable network metrics in an early development phase. This paper contributes a workflow as well as the required toolchain to evaluate new real-time Ethernet communication architectures using event based simulation in OMNeT++. We introduce a domain specific language (DSL) - the Abstract Network Description Language (ANDL) - to describe and configure the simulation and present the required simulation models for real-time Ethernet and fieldbus technologies such as CAN and FlexRay. We further introduce new analysis tools for special in-vehicle network use-cases and the interaction of the simulation with third-party applications established in the automotive domain.