What, precisely, is a ‘connected car’? Essentially, it can be defined as anything related to infotainment, telematics, ADAS, autonomous driving, cyber security, OTA, eHorizon, car2X, Cloud, and back-end.
At the component level, the technology and software for the connected car and, specifically, for ADAS and autonomous driving, is becoming increasingly sophisticated and robust. But engineers working on algorithms and sensor fusion software still have plenty of work to do before it will be reliable and robust enough to handle the thousands of use cases that the real world will throw at it. The same can be said for most of the other technologies (both hardware and software, and both inside and outside of the vehicle) that are used by the connected car. Both industry and the press focus sharply on the significant advances and new possibilities that these technologies present.
However, the underlying foundation needed for the connected vehicle to truly function and operate at its full and intended potential often takes a back seat. This is because, to date, the industry has largely focused on individual components rather than the system as a whole…it focuses on the puzzle pieces instead of the bigger picture. Critical system design processes, such as robust and thorough component and system specifications and requirements, do not receive enough attention.
The OEMs face many challenges with connected vehicle components and systems in both current and next-generation programmes. One important takeaway has been that, from the design to integration and eventual validation for a connected vehicle, a key ingredient to ending the process with a robust and reliable end-to-end system is that the entire lifecycle of the programme needs to be managed and viewed through a connected system thinking mentality and process. The individual pieces of a telematics system or an autonomous vehicle need to be designed from the ground up, with connected system thinking. Otherwise, thousands of small components comprising the system, often provided by a large number of suppliers, will result in an end product that does not meet consumer expectations and may not even function properly, not to mention a poor customer experience.
Connected thinking
When we send a simple text message we rarely think of the complex foundational infrastructure for this process, despite the knowledge that such a message must pass through numerous technologies and interfaces. The car industry often seems to underestimate the tremendous complexity that makes up the connected vehicle ecosystem. Infotainment, telematics, ADAS, autonomous driving, cyber security, OTA, eHorizon, Car2X, the Cloud, back-ends, and many other technologies are all interconnected with different (new and legacy) systems from various suppliers that, combined, add up to thousands of interfaces that all need to communicate reliably during normal and high-stress vehicle conditions in order to be considered safe and reliable. Before applications are designed and added to a vehicle, an adequate connected vehicle system foundation must be in place.
Connected system thinking is at the core of connected vehicle design, integration, and validation activities; in all of these tasks, the one thing that is stressed from the beginning is to do everything with the entire system in mind. The use of automated development and test tools is critical. While this is certainly true for individual components, such as an ADAS forward-facing collision avoidance control system, it is also true of the sub-system and the end-to-end system making up the complete ecosystem of a connected vehicle.
The use of sophisticated simulation and modelling tools for component and system automation testing is only slowly gaining traction and acceptance in the automotive space. Many suppliers and OEMs still rely predominantly on manual testing (done on simple benches or in vehicles). But such an approach does not support the lifecycle of the technologies used, nor is it compatible with the compressed development time cycle aspired to by the OEMs.
Furthermore, there is some danger involved in performing test drives with components and systems as sophisticated and complicated as the connected vehicle in which drivers accumulate hundreds of thousands of miles. Similar problems exist when performing testing that is non-repeatable and/or done in an uncontrolled environment. More often than not, such practices fail to produce a reliable and robust component or a system capable of handling the thousands of use cases needed for the car to be considered safe. While vehicle testing has a place in the integration and validation phase of nearly all programmes, it should not be considered as the primary means of validating critical functions such as ADAS, autonomous driving, and telematics.
Manual testing, system testing
Over-reliance on manual testing, often done using resources with little or no domain and system experience and expertise, represents significant risk to any connected vehicle programme. This same realisation occurred ten to 15 years ago in the powertrain engineering field, when the key to high-quality, safe and reliable systems shifted towards the use of Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL) testing systems (also included here would be MiL and SiL). The connected vehicle industry must now go down that same path. FEV engineers have demonstrated the advantages and benefits of simulation and modelling capabilities and technologies for development and testing purposes. Customers realise the benefits of using sophisticated connected vehicle HiL systems such as FEV’s Telematics System Tester (TST) or the HMI Test System (HMIts) for testing features and functions of connected vehicle applications like GPS, cellular, Wi-Fi, BT, LiDar, Radar, and DSRC, rather than performing such testing with separate and standalone systems in the lab. In a world in which everything now communicates with everything, the vehicle is no longer the centre of the transportation industry but just another node on the IoT, and cars drive on the network. Individual development, integration and testing of components and system features, rather than performing these tasks at the system level, is no longer sufficient.
To build up an acceptable foundation for connected vehicle infrastructure and systems, it will be necessary to not only embrace a new way of thinking that is adapted to the connected space, but also to adopt the mentality of applying tools and methodologies that have since become common practice for other vehicle domains, such as powertrain and high voltage systems. HiL systems have already been widely used in these areas for some time. In addition, heavy reliance on processes such as functional safety have brought significant improvements in reliability, robustness, and quality to these areas of the vehicle. Dismissing such methods and tools as not being applicable to the connected vehicle space would be a profound error in judgement. Connected vehicle engineering must embrace and apply these tools.
Safety and security
As vehicle components and sub-systems become one large, cohesive and interdependent system, design and validation processes and tools need to become similarly unified for all vehicle domains. Quality, safety, and security are no longer limited to a few areas of the car, but have become part of the entire eco-system of a connected car (inside and outside the vehicle). Cyber security, e-Horizon, and OTA software updates, all critical components of ADAS, autonomous driving, and telematics, have at least 50% of their functionality and complexity ‘located’ outside of the car. Yet all these features and functions impact sub-systems inside the car and have a high degree of impact on a vehicle’s reliability, safety, and security.
A good system starts with thorough and detailed requirement specifications that start out incorporating the need and provision for validation. Functional safety (ISO 26262) is an important design practice that needs to be adopted by the connected vehicle community. Today, however, it is only applied in the case of ADAS and autonomous driving.
Cyber security, still a very new, yet ever-present and dangerous threat to the connected vehicle, needs to receive more attention and will require new design and validation practices to which the automotive space has not previously been accustomed. Though ad hoc testing has always been a part of the automotive industry, cyber security penetration testing throughout the entire eco-system (vehicle, Cloud, apps, back-end, etc.) is new and needs different skills from those in the skillset of a traditional automotive test engineer. Understanding and considering all of the vehicle domains and the ecosystem is critical when designing and validating a connected vehicle. Thousands of existing use cases must be considered and hundreds of new ones will be added on a regular basis during the lifecycle of a connected car.
Complex and evolving – the connected vehicle challenge
The foundational system challenges facing the connected vehicle are numerous, highly complex, and continuously evolving. The industry has not seen and dealt with many of these new, emerging technologies before, nor does is have substantial experience with the influence of previously disconnected industries coming together, or the potential impact of parts being supplied by a supply base that is now much bigger and more diverse. The complexity of the applications needed in a connected vehicle cannot be supported by the existing foundation; proper subject matter experts must be available and the development process must ensure that the fundamentals of the entire system are addressed. The process and methodology of bringing it all together and making the complete end-to-end system work consistently and reliably through connected system thinking incorporates connected vehicle design, integration, and validation of the components making up the connected vehicle system – both inside and outside of the car. This approach to connected system thinking is the key to a safe, reliable, secure, and successful connected vehicle programme.
This article appeared in the Q1 2016 issue of Automotive Megatrends Magazine. Follow this link to download the full issue.
