An Insight Into Software Defined Vehicle

The SDV architecture is based on simplified design, centralizes computing power and optimized electrical/electronic content, components, and functionality. In SDV Architecture we have two key components, Domain Controller & Vehicle Compute. The Domain controllers deliver power and data connections to the sensors and other devices, with just a backbone connection to the Vehicle Compute. All peripheral sensors and devices are connected to Domain/Zone controllers. Vehicle Computes are essentially Central Computing Units – they will host Applications & Services (ECU functionalities are converted into containerized Micro-services) & these services provided by multiple Central Computing units communicates among each other & exchange the data using Service Bus Architecture. As the I/O is separated from the compute, the computing resources in a vehicle among various software applications are allocated dynamically, as needed, similar to a cloud computing model. A critical safety feature that requires more processing power will have higher priority over less critical functions such as infotainment. Car new features will be delivered through Software Upgrades through OTA. Software will be able to tune the Car dynamically. This reduces Vehicle Cost of Operation as well as New Features Development Cost & increases the Life Cycle of the Car.

Cloud has a big role to play for the end state of SDV. This includes complete Cloud based Service development and testing & Car Software using the best of DevSecOps practices. Car Software will be first tested on Cloud using simulation before pushing to the Vehicle. A hybrid new secure OTA delivers Software for containerized services to vehicle. Several Services could be offloaded to Edge & Cloud to reduce the load on Vehicle Compute e.g., in Infotainment – Run your Netflix on Cloud & stream to your Car Head Unit. Vehicle services can be managed & monitored from Cloud including Shadow mode testing. SDV will also open new revenue streams for OEMs e.g., Subscription based service enablement. This will increase the vehicle lifetime and a lot of focus will be software development for new software features.

While it is exciting there are challenges too – both from Engineering as well as Organizational Perspectives. From Organization perspective it needs to go through a complete mindset change – need to establish a Car Software Organization – A Software Factory with skills aligned to Cloud to Sensors, SW Product Management Mind set, Culture of Innovation & Growth, Rapid & Iterative Development Cycles, Human Centered Design, Test Driven/Behavior Driven Development, Continuous Integration & Continuous Deployment etc. Changes are required across Model, Mindset, Method & Machinery.

There are few key critical Engineering Challenges:

• Since the compute and memory is constrained in a vehicle, the approach for solving the software problem is very different from a typical cloud environment. For example, use of low footprint orchestration options which can be further optimized to meet automotive requirements.
• Existing automotive grade hypervisors need to be scaled-up to support multiple SoCs seamlessly.
• While SDV is a connected Car, Cloud ecosystem is designed to be highly available, but vehicle has considerable down-time (and limited battery power).
• SDV needs to meet the expected performance of time-critical vehicle functions as well as meet the expected functional safety goals of vehicle functions.
• SDV needs to manage Lifecycle of entire vehicle functions (full-vehicle updates).
• A strong connected security system will be needed. Developers need to build strong defense against cyber-attack both OTA and the cloud’s edge.