An Investigation of the AUTOSAR Adaptive Platform from an Industry Perspective

Jul 16, 2026

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Industry reliance on vendor-supplied software is rising in automotive development, motivating standardized reuse through AUTOSAR. This study investigates pain-points that surface when building AUTOSAR Adaptive applications and determines whether they stem from the platform specification, vendor implementation, or local usage. A Design Science Research approach develops a minimal AP stack as a prototype. Findings attribute pain-points to specification-inherent architectural choices, implementation factors, and local practices, implying mitigation via improved tooling for configuration management and faster developer training on runtime life-cycle.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages11

Reading Time28 min

Introduction

Software-driven competition and standardization

Pain-points definition and complexity drivers

Research motivation and study approach

An Investigation of the AUTOSAR Adaptive Platform from an Industry Perspective 1st Bengt Haraldsson TRATON R&D AB, So¨derta¨lje Chalmers University of Technology University of Gothenburg Gothenburg, Sweden [bengthar@chalmers.se](bengthar@chalmers.se) 2nd Srijita Basu 3rd Miroslaw Staron Chalmers University of Technology University of Gothenburg Gothenburg, Sweden [srijita.basu@gu.se / miroslaw.staron@gu.se](srijita.basu@gu.se / miroslaw.staron@gu.se) 4th Erika Mayer TRATON R&D AB Extra Consulting Sdertlje, Sweden [erika.mayer@scania.com](erika.mayer@scania.com) arXiv :2607 .05227v 1 [ cs . SE] 6 Jul 2026 Abstract—Context: The reliance on software as a distinguishing factor in the automotive industry is increasing. With a combined reliance on vendor-supplied software and cost-effective implementation, the AUTOSAR consortium was initialized to provide standardized platform specifications that enable re-use. Specifically, the AUTOSAR Adaptive Platform (AP) specification aims to provide a high-performance service-oriented architecture. Objective: The goal of this study is to investigate what painpoints emerge when developing AUTOSAR Adaptive applications and whether they originate from the platform specification, its vendor-implementation, or its local usage. Methods: We conduct a Design Science Research study, developing a minimal AP that serves as an experimental prototype for our investigation. Results: We find that a combination of specification-inherent, implementation-based, and local practices contributes to the emergence of pain-points. Conclusions: We conclude that there are AUTOSAR specification-inherent reasons for pain-points, resulting from architectural choices and re-use goals. The implication for development organizations is the need to mitigate these effects through tooling that better supports configuration file management and reduces developer training time to properly understand the adaptive application runtime life-cycle. Index Terms—AUTOSAR Adaptive, Design Science Research, pain-points I. INTRODUCTION In the current landscape of automotive products, software has become an increasingly important distinguishing factor driving business success or failure [1] . With increased competition from new entrants into markets offering innovative software-based solutions, traditional Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) and their suppliers need to find ways to compete. In order to promote effective, efficient, safe, and secure software development the AUTOSAR Classical and AUTOSAR Adaptive Platform (AP) aim to create an open industry standard for automotive industry E/E architecture [2] . The first platform version for traditional real-time embedded systems development was released in 2005 (Classical) and the first version for service oriented architectures in 2017 (Adaptive) . We have good understanding of the technical implications of The authors would like to thank TRATON R&D AB, Software Center, and VINNOVA. This study was partially funded by Software Center, an initiative of Chalmers, University of Gothenburg, 17 companies, and two universities. the Adaptive framework from the descriptions in the specifications, but the organizational implications in development organizations is less understood. This study aims to investigate the AP from an industry perspective. We want to know what happens in an organization when a standardized architecture framework that is specified to meet a general set of requirements is introduced in a local development context. Our investigation is based around the notion of pain-points. Inspired by Chattopadhyay et al. [3], we define the pain-points associated with AP development as; Developer-experienced difficulties (cognitive, technical, or organizational) that emerge when applying the AUTOSAR Adaptive architectural framework within safety-critical, large-scale automotive product development. In this study, pain-points refer to recurring and structurally ro

FAQs

What is the main objective of the study on AUTOSAR Adaptive?

To investigate what pain-points emerge when developing AUTOSAR Adaptive applications and whether they originate from the specification, vendor implementation, or local usage.

How were pain-points investigated in the study?

The authors performed a Design Science Research study by building a minimal AUTOSAR Adaptive prototype stack, running experimental application development with developers, and collecting qualitative workshop data to classify pain-points and identify root causes.

What were the key findings about where pain-points come from?

Pain-points arise from a combination of specification-inherent architectural choices, implementation-based factors, and local practices that together contribute to recurring difficulties.

Jul 16, 2026

Upload by Ezra