Ethernet Network in the Automotive field: Standards, possible approaches to Protocol Validation and Simulations

The availability of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), the pressing demand for connectivity and increasingly complex and content-rich infotainment systems, have had, as first consequence, a considerable increase in data traffic and in the demand for solutions capable of ensuring high throughput and low latency. The intrinsic characteristics of the Ethernet Standard make it the ideal solution to the problem posed to automotive systems engineers, while, at the same time, citing advantages such as: reduction of complexity, weight and cost of wiring. However, if on the one hand Ethernet Standard represents the solution to the problem of bandwidth availability, on the other it poses another important challenge: to define validation methodologies and strategies that allow to easily test the integrability of ECUs interconnected on Ethernet, as well as is currently the case for ECUs interconnected on CAN. In addition, simulator and test tools are not so obvious and well defined such as CAN networks. Since Ethernet for local network cannot be used as it is for automotive purposes, due to different time requirements and Electromagnetic/Radio-Frequency Interferences, the objective is to deepen new and reusable standards from Physical Layer to Application Layer according to OSI model. Testing methodologies will be also studied, in particular, regarding Conformance Testing will be referred to Open Alliance test specifications, instead for Performance Testing will be resumed RFC2544 and RFC2889 taken from Ethernet for local networks. Finally, as a practical example, nodes connected on real-time Automotive Ethernet will be simulated, comparing the different time requirements, thanks to an open-source framework, called CoRE4INET, based on INET and OMNeT ++ simulator.