Abstract Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) [ 1, 2] has emerged as a solution to the extreme design challenges caused by automotive Electrical/Electronic (EE) complexity [ 3]. This paper explores how coherency in early design can be applied across the entire EE design cycle. Starting from a functional abstraction, we introduce a new lightweight solution to evaluate and guide optimized implementations integrating software, networks, devices, and connectivity. The pattern used for this and the data created can be directly driven into downstream, domain-specific design flows delivering vehicle lower costs, better design quality, and faster innovation. Introduction Model-based approaches to describing and developing system architectures are often based on domain-specific languages derived from UML [4], such as EAST-ADL [5] or SysML [6]. At the same time, the technical content (components) of the system is described in various forms and levels of abstraction (for example feature, activity, sequence, and/or status diagrams: see figure 1), and then suitably mapped for implementation. This approach requires considerable effort and is more suited to decision documentation than to agile, iterative architecture optimization. Indeed, to make meaningful technical and financial evaluations of the overall system architecture each of the abstraction level must be specified to a high degree of detail. In the subsequent mapping, the effort increases as the square of the level of detail: the number of artifacts within the individual abstraction layers, for example. If the calculation of the corresponding efficacy metrics is not sufficiently performant, evaluation of a decision - for example allocation of a software component to a particular control unit - does not take place soon enough to support comprehensive evaluation of each individual choice. Figure 1. Representation of SysML diagram types [ 7] Overall, this significantly hampers architecture optimization. The provision of the necessary data and calculations of the desired metrics can in certain circumstances take more time than planned for the entire project! Functional Modeling The alternative approach described here uses standardized, hierarchical function models combined on a single abstraction level to describe the technical content of system architecture. In this context, standardized means separating individual functions from their eventual implementation as a hardware, sensor, driver, actuator, or software component. Instead of distributing the models across How to Integrate Model-Based Systems Engineering across Automotive EE Domains2016-01-0005 Published 04/05/2016 Nick Smith Mentor Graphics Corp. CITATION: Smith, N., "How to Integrate Model-Based Systems Engineering across Automotive EE Domains," SAE Technical Paper 2016-01-0005, 2016, doi:10.4271/2016-01-0005. Copyright © 2016 SAE InternationalDownloaded from SAE International by University of Auckland, Saturday, August 04, 2018various levels, the individual domain-specific descriptions can be combined within a single functional abstraction, thereby eliminating the lengthy mapping process. Communication between individual functions is via signals standardized as either software/internal to device, bus, or electrical/ wireless. A set of rules from a detailed options/variants model links all artifacts. The component models for hardware, software, network, and electrical can thereby be integrated, and their semantic dependencies validated in real time using design rule checks. In this way it is possible to capture the technical, variant-driven content of the downstream implementation domains (hardware, software, network, and electrical) as early as the functional abstraction level, to validate this content across all variants, and to flow data on to the detailed implementation domains: see figure 2. Figure 2. Domain-specific processes and upstream functional architecture design Figure 3. Func