ASAM MCD

The ASAM (Association for Standar­di­sation of Automation and Measuring Systems) association provides stan­dards for data models, interfaces and syntax speci­fi­ca­tions for a large number of app­li­ca­tions, examples, evaluations and simul­ations. The ASAM-MCD standard specifies the interfaces and data exchange formats of MCD (application) systems. These MCD systems enable the access to networked ECUs and can be integrated into app­li­ca­tions via a GDI interface, for example. So they are used for measuring, adjusting (optimization of characteristics and characteristic curves) and dia­gnos­ing. All three function groups should be able to be used as independent subsystems, which are combined via standardized interfaces according to the application require­ment. The description of inter­faces and data exchange formats of the MCD systems forms the main focus of MCD.

During development, production and maintenance, the MCD systems used should be designed to be compatible and inter­change­able with each other, thus sup­port­ing the develop­ment pro­cess. The inclusion of control units in the motor vehicle is an important character­istic. This integration is to be en­capsul­ated from the viewpoint of the users of MCD systems. The user there­fore needs access to the measure­ment and ad­just­ment objects as well as the results of dia­gnos­tic services. In order to be able to integrate and exchange ECUs, the ECU infor­mation must be offered in a uniform form. For this reason, the ASAM e. V. association defined the ASAM MCD-2D standard in May 2004, which makes all information, both require­ments and doc­u­men­ta­tion, relevant to vehicle and ECU dia­gnos­tics available in ODX format for data input to the work­shop tester or for software configuration.