OSEK/VDX is a joint project of the automotive industry. It aims at an industry standard for an open-ended architecture for distributed control units in vehicles.

This part of ISO 17356 describes the concept of a real-time operating system, capable of multitasking, which can be used for motor vehicles. It is not a product description which relates to a specific implementation. It also specifies the operating system Application Program Interface (API).

General conventions, explanations of terms and abbreviations have been compiled in ISO 17356‑1. ISO 17356‑6 describes implementation and system generation aspects.

The specification of the OS represents a uniform environment which supports efficient utilization of resources for automotive control unit application software. The OS is a single processor operating system meant for distributed embedded control units.