It’s an oft-cited anecdote, but it’s worth repeating: there are now more lines of code in a single vehicle than there were in the first rocket on the moon. As vehicle complexity increases, however, so do the challenges for both OEMs, and suppliers.
The many millions of lines of code in a car – there could be tens of millions of lines of code in a single electronic control unit (ECU) – need to be carefully managed, and such complexity requires powerful multicore microprocessors. The myriad recalls just in the first half of 2014 highlight the need for the automotive industry to prove and guarantee system reliability – and that means secure software solutions.
Green Hills Software is a large independent embedded software provider and has been involved with automotive industry Tier 1s, Tier 2s, and OEMs for over 20 years. The company focuses on a number of vertical markets, including automotive. As Dan Mender, the company’s Vice President of Business Development, explained to Megatrends, there is a movement towards ECU consolidation, which is evolving to include some autonomous driving functionality, and some legacy ECU software. “There’s a hypersensitivity to make sure systems can be validated and tested and support the level of reliability, availability and functionality that’s needed in the car, without failure.”
OEMs and suppliers now need to be able to run a complex processor, adhere to stringent safety and security standards, and consolidate functions in a provable way. “We help OEMs with the idea of ECU consolidation, how the next generation of infotainment systems will be multifunctional, and how they can take advantage of that in a powerful ECU design, but in a safe and reliable way,” said Mender. “This allows them to consolidate functions in one box, increase reliability of the electronics, and reduce the cost. Having fewer individual ECUs in the system increases quality and reliability.”
The evolution of in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) platforms
There has been a movement towards open source software platforms like GENIVI, Android, Linux, or a combination of these. There may be the need to run two platforms in combination with more critical applications, and that presents yet more complexity. Green Hills does not develop infotainment stacks, like Linux or QNX, but provides the platform that runs them safely and securely, within the OEM and Tier 1’s platform. To support the evolution of IVI platforms, Green Hills delivers a scalable, flexible safety-certified platform allowing the OEM or Tier 1 to run whatever IVI infotainment stack they choose, explained Mender. “OEMs and Tier 1s are focused on a broad set of markets and customer requirements that can be driven by not only geographical aspects, but by different groups of individuals looking to purchase vehicles. Whether that is the digital natives or Gen Ys, they all have different things they’re looking for. One size does not fit all.”
However, while one size may not fit all, there does need to be a degree of flexibility. Green Hills provides an ASIL-qualified platform on which its customers can run any combination of guest operating systems they choose for infotainment. Mender said, “They may have a legacy infotainment platform, but want to add Android to bring in an app store environment, in a safe and reliable way.” The ability is needed to flexibly run the infotainment experience of choice based on geography, cost, and a targeted consumer group, such as Millenials. Different vehicle platforms, he said, will also offer different experiences, from entry level vehicles in the BRIC countries, to high-end vehicles sold in China, the US, and Europe.
Autonomous driving and security
The race to launch the first commercially available autonomous car has been on for years; most recently, Google released design details of a prototype of its first self-driving car. Although a fully autonomous vehicle is still years away, the level of driverless features such as self-parking and automatic braking are increasing. Around 90% of collisions on the road are due to driver error, and Mender believes that addressing that with autonomous technology will be valuable for generations.
As vehicles become increasingly autonomous, and increasingly connected, there is a growing concern over safety and security. “We’re helping our customers with the highest levels of safety and security,” said Mender. “In some cases, that’s the ISO 26262 standard, where it has the ASIL ratings, from ASIL-A to ASIL-D. Our software products have been qualified to the highest levels of ASIL. We can help our customers with design architectures and philosophies that are safe and secure.”
To solve some upcoming performance challenges in the autonomous vehicle realm, it will be necessary to take advantage of the multicore processors available on the market, but that poses a safety challenge. Similarly, there are predictions that by 2020, there will be over 150 million vehicles connected to the Internet. Security surrounding that communication and connectivity may not have been ignored, but many agree that not enough focus has been placed on it.
New vulnerabilities are being presented every day, said Mender. “One area we focus on is guaranteeing that information gets to where it needs to be, and is not compromised, hacked, or used in a malicious way. Our drive is to make sure the automotive industry isn’t putting its collective head in the sand and thinking no-one will hack cars. If we don’t do the right thing, it will be easy to capture transactions or steal data of the owner of the vehicle.” OEMs and suppliers need to consider data security at the beginning of their development, he added, rather than as an afterthought.
As the automotive industry moves increasingly towards connected vehicles, the need is growing for understanding policies and architectural aspects to deliver systems that are both reliable and secure. With vehicles beginning to transmit and manage Big Data, discussions will be focused on the safety and security of systems to support the continuous and increasing growth in the number of lines of code.
