Ports are associated with all the Software Components (SWCs) and ports are unique to every SWC. Ports are not shared like Port Interfaces. A port is the interaction point between SWC and other SWCs. Each port is accolated with the port interface that defines the data that needs to be transmitted. There are basically two types of ports in the SWCs- Require Port (RPort) and Provider Port(PPort). If the RPort is associated with Sender Receiver Interface then the port acts as a Receiver Port; it is associated with a Client-Server interface then it acts as a CLIENT Port. If the PPort is associated with Sender Receiver Interface then the port acts as a Sender Port; it is associated with a Client-Server interface then it acts as a SERVER Port. There are PR Port Prototypes also possible.
Ports can further be classified based on their usage. There are three types of ports- Application Port, Service Port and Calibration Port.
Application Port is the most commonly used port by SWCs (Application SWC, Sensor Actuator SWC or Complex Device Driver SWC). The applications ports are used to establish communication with other SWCs in the application layer (both inter ECU and Intra ECU). They are clearly connected in the VFB level. They use the AUTOSAR Interface and Standardized Interface
Service Ports are used by SWCs (Application SWC, Sensor Actuator SWC or Complex Device Driver SWC) to access service in the BSW layer. Services may include accessing services from DEM, BSWM, COMM etc. The Service Ports use the Standardized AUTOSAR Interface to communicate with the Service layer modules in the BSW. They need not be connected in the VFB level.
Calibration Ports- In embedded automotive software design, manipulation of parameters is termed calibration. AUTOSAR provides flexible support for manipulating calibration parameters. There are two types of defining the Calibration Parameters
· Port-based calibration: Parameters are explicitly visible on the VFB. This mechanism is meant for public parameters of a SW-C .
· Private calibration parameters: These reside internally within a SW-C. They are not explicitly visible on the VFB level.
The rationale for differentiating between “private” and “public” parameters is to indicate which parameters are safe to be calibrated and which parameters should not be touched. Additionally, AUTOSAR allows to specify whether parameters may be calibrated online (while the software function is running), or only before initialization.
If we use Port-based calibration then we create the Parameter Software Component and use th Calibration Port to access the Calibration parameter. In contrast to normal software-components, parameter software components do not possess an internal behavior but are simple containers that provide (calibration) parameters. They do this through a PPort (Calibration port) typed by a compatible parameter interface.
