Functional development of Driver Information Module using Simulink

Abstract

Safety seat-belt reminder software provides appropriate alerts -including gong sound alarm, visual indication and text messages- with the intention of reminding the passengers of using seat buckles in a car. The current thesis report elaborates on the procedure of functional development of the mentioned software for Volvo Car Corporation (VCC) which is an automotive manufacturing industry in Sweden. Generally speaking, developing the seat-belt reminder software is initiated from extracting the software specifications according to a number of fixed and definite functional requirements. The specification document is handed to the code supplier based on which the final software is programmed. However, those pre-defined requirements are likely to be altered during the software life cycle. The new changes, during the development, are evaluated and then the decision will be made based on the severity and the complexity of those requirements to be implemented. If the new requirements are simple to implement the supplier includes them in the current software under development otherwise the requirements will be delivered within the next release. In order to prevent the negative effects of mentioned changes, an idea can be simulating the preliminary requirements using the Simulink, generating the automatic code using Embedded Coder tool and consequently testing the first iteration code. This innovative idea provides VCC with detecting the probable faults together with analyzing the feasibility of new functionalities. The current thesis report presents the development stages of the Simulink model, automatic code generation for target systems as well as validation of the generated code. In addition here, we compare two software development process models, V-model and model-based design, considering the advantages and disadvantages with respect to the driver information system (DIS) development. As a result, we develop the safety seat-belt reminder software using model-based design.