A quality framework for evaluating automotive architecture

Abstract: As the number and complexity of software systems increase in automobiles, it has become crucial to specify, measure, and evaluate automotive software quality. However, the existing quality methods focus on MATLAB/Simulink design models, and do not address architectural models (e.g. high-level functional or electrical/electronic (E/E) architectures). Therefore, our objective is to develop novel quality specification, measurement, and evaluation methods targeting both architectural and design models. We combine the methods proposed with recent insights in software quality modelling and create an integrated quality assessment framework for architectural and design models of automotive software. The quality framework comprises six quality characteristics, 16 sub-characteristics, 71 metrics, and three independent tools (parser, quality metrics calculator, and quality visualiser). By applying the framework to three subsequent releases of an architectural model and the corresponding design models, we have observed, for example, that addition of new functionality or bug fixing in design models often come at a price of increased complexity at the design level, and sometimes compromise modularity of the architectural model. Keywords: quality framework, architecture evaluation, quality model, quality metric