SOFTWARE UPDATESTHE EFFICIENT USE OF CONNECTED CARSThe components of a vehicle are well known: body, tires, engine, transmission and clearly, also software.

For a long time, it has been an integral part of electronic control units, but the recent exponential increase of

software components in vehicles put traditional concepts to the test. Therefore, vehicle manufacturers and

OEMs need to fi nd a way to manage software updates more effi ciently. Suggestions are coming from Red Bend.

FIGURE © PhotoInc/iStockphoto.com

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MOTIVATION

The numbers are impressive: In a pre-mium class automobile there are close to 100 million lines of software codes, com-pared to the Boeing 787 with about 6.5 million lines. In addition the cost of soft-ware and electronics can reach 35 to 40 percent of the cost of a car. Present day automobiles typically contain more than 60 ECUs such as the audio system, brake system, doors, lighting, engine, trans-mission, batteries, and more. The embedded software package size is now tens of megabytes for engine and trans-mission controllers, while audio/info-tainment systems are usually the largest and most complicated software units, often exceeding 1000 MB. In an article that was written in 2011, IBM claims that approximately 50 percent of the car war-ranty costs are now related to electronics and their embedded software.

Today’s automobile contains many complex electronic systems; each may incorporate a large number of Electronic Control Units (ECUs) performing a single function and communicating via a com-mon bus/network. Like most other sys-tems, the systems of cars are supplied with updates to fi x bugs and provide new features.

But the methods previously used for the management of software are beco-ming inadequate in the face of the soft-ware load: vehicle development cycles do not meet the fast-paced changes in the software market, repairs for small soft-ware failures take too much time and the customers are used to the advantages of the ever-evolving operating systems they know from smart phones or PCs. They

do not want to wait until they purchase the next car to take advantage of new features. Manufacturers who develop convenient solutions for such develop-ments have clear advantages regarding customer satisfaction and loyalty.

HOW UPDATES IN VEHICLES ARE PERFORMED TODAY

There are many control modules in a vehicle, most of which are intercon-nected over some form of vehicle net-work interface (CAN, MOST, LIN, FlexRay). However, only a select few will have access to external cellular or Wi-Fi networks, typically the infotainment head unit or Telematics module. It is pos-sible to use an externally connected module as a gateway for updates, where fi rmware updates for other modules are received by this gateway module and then transferred to the appropriate mod-ule over a vehicle network. In any case, each of the vehicle control modules will potentially be subject to updates.

There are several use cases today for updating automobile software: because of recalls (mandatory or voluntary) or customer complaints, during scheduled maintenance or when delivering new features and applications.

The recall case is the most common, and it begins with a vehicle manufactu-rer fi nding a problem with the vehicle functionality. The affected functionality can be fi xed by changing software in one of the vehicle’s ECUs. The appropriate ECU supplier is then requested to pro-vide a new release. The supplier ships the software release to the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), which tests it for quality assurance (QA). After that, the OEM notifi es the dealers and owners of the recall via mail. The OEM sends the new software version to the dealers on a CD by mail as well. The dealer updates the reprogramming (serial communication) tools with the content from the CD. The vehicle owner drops off the vehicle at the dealer shop and the technician starts connecting a serial communication tool to the in-vehicle bus to access the targeted ECU. After performing the update and che-cking the targeted ECU for the new soft-ware version to make sure proper re-fl as-hing happened, the customer picks up the updated vehicle und the dealer char-ges the OEM for the recall labor.

The update duration changes signifi -cantly depending on the module size and the speed of the serial protocol; however due to a lot of overhead, dealers are charging one to two hours of labor for such activity. There are some car models where the update can take more than two hours. It should be noted that pro-gramming tools are rather expensive, so there is a limit to the number of simulta-neous re-programming.

NEW POSSIBILITIES FOR CONNECTED CARS

The current method of updating software in cars was suitable when the amount of software was minimal. Now that soft-ware has become vital to the operation and feature-set of cars, the method of software updating must be improved. It is clear that performing the update in the customer location and not in the dealer-ship represents a better and more opti-mised method in term of cost savings and user experience. According to ABI Research, there will be 210 million con-nected cars by 2016 so the main enabler for doing over-the-air update is there: connectivity, ➊.

The FOTA (Firmware-Over-The-Air) update process comprises three primary stages: generating the update, managing the delivery of the update, and perfor-ming the update.

GENERATING THE UPDATE PACKAGE

To perform a FOTA update, a software update package containing defect fi xes or new features must be generated. In order to make this package as small as possible (in general it is less than 5 % of the original size), the update package includes only the changes (also referred to as the “delta”) between the version that already exists on the ECU and the new version being deployed to the vehi-cle, ➋. This update package is typically generated by the owner of the software, most often a tier I vendor.

MANAGING THE DELIVERY OF THE UPDATE PACKAGE

Once generated, the update package is published to a distribution platform. In the mobile industry, this platform is managed by either the mobile phone

AUTHOR

RUDOLF VON STOKARis Managing Director at Red Bend

in Munich (Germany).

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manufacturer or the network operator. In automotive, this platform is managed by the OEM. This platform manages the various versions of the update packages and handles the actual network delivery (download) of the packages to the appro-priate vehicle model and specifi c ECU. There are typically multiple versions of update packages, each intended for par-ticular vehicle models and confi gura-tions. This portion of the process can be an integral part of an overall Telematics or over-the-air (OTA) diagnostics system.

A centralised software package reposi-tory is used for the FOTA use cases, ➌. This centralised repository replaces the distribution of software updates to the various dealers. It signifi cantly reduces

the Time-To-Market (TTM) of any new software version. This system is also res-ponsible for the delta package delivery to the device. There are several ways to perform such a delivery. In mobile, most market players use a standard protocol developed through the Open Mobile Alli-ance Device Management (OMA-DM) organisation.

PERFORMING THE UPDATE

In this third stage of the process, the downloaded update package is used to perform the actual update (re-fl ashing) of the original software image. The update package and the FOTA update software necessary to perform the

update occupy a small amount of mem-ory allocated within the embedded device in the vehicle (to address the challenges associated with the limited memory resources). In this stage, the FOTA update software validates that the correct update package has been received and that the update process has been successfully completed. It is impor-tant to mention that the FOTA updates do not need to be sequential and can support any-to-any software version update.

However, it can introduce some poten-tial procedure challenges such as how to make sure that the car will not be driven in the middle of the update. Therefore, FOTA adoption in the automotive indus-try will take more time to become fully operational.

INFOTAINMENT UPDATES – A SERIOUS BUSINESS

More and more car manufacturers are implementing over-the-air software updates as a way to improve functional-ity, fi x software defects and guarantee a user experience that is continuously bet-ter. Car manufacturers GM (OnStar) and Daimler (MBRACE 2) have been leaders in recognising the value of over-the-air software updating for improving their infotainment systems. For example, GM recently updated the Bluetooth technol-ogy to support late model smart phones.

The updating solution must have scope and scale. Scope is the ability and the fl exibility to update all of the memory including the user and system space with full or discrete components. As well, the solution must scale to

➋ The transfer of the so-called “Delta”, which contains only the differences from the previous version, has a huge impact when large recalls have to be made; it lowers the costs for the manufacturer and the need for bandwidth: for a product recall, the update time can be reduced by up to 50 %

➊ The path of over-the-air updates: the software owner (the manufacturer or OEM) ships a new version of his software to a software management centre from there, the fi les are transmitted to the vehicles via a mobile network, where they are unpacked and installed

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manage millions of updates without any failure and with the highest security possible. This, for example, will enable QNX CAR 2 users to update not only the QNX CAR 2 software but also individual applications such as Pandora or the Wea-ther channel.

In the mobile industry, where over-the-air software updating is a well-estab-lished practice, manufacturers and ser-vice providers realise many benefi ts:: Cost reduction: Over-the-air software

updates have reduced warranty costs.: Update success rate. Over-the-air soft-

ware updates deliver the highest suc-cess rate.

: Faster updates: Sending only the code that is different between the original software and the update (often called the delta) is faster and uses less bandwidth.

: Customer satisfaction: A fast and auto-matic over-the-air process eliminates the need for the consumer to go to the dealer.

The mobile industry has enjoyed these benefi ts for some time. The automotive industry needs over-the-air updating even more so because the infotainment system includes millions of lines of code (LOC) and updating this software requires a holistic solution that can man-age the whole software life-cycle.

Red Bend Software integrated its vRapid Mobile update technology, which exists in more than 1.6 billion devices into QNX CAR 2. This enables car manu-facturers and Tier 1 providers the fl exibi-lity to create an over-the-air update strat-egy that is optimised for infotainment systems and also for other embedded systems in the car. Today, infotainment systems are central in the car cockpit experience. These systems contain not only the QNX CAR 2 but also a variety of applications. Applications for the auto industry are not like applications for mobile devices. Applications for the auto industry have been modifi ed in order to meet the car environment and have more

voice activation and larger buttons so the driver isn’t distracted.

Car manufacturers are looking at their infotainment system as a differentiator when selling the car and a valuable asset to generate revenues after the sale. The automobile industry doesn’t want Over-the-Top (OTT) companies controlling the delivery channel to the infotainment sys-tem and weakening automotive brands, similar to what happened in the mobile industry.

With a holistic FOTA solution car manufacturers can guarantee ownership of the infotainment fi rmware and appli-cations, increasing the consumers’ per-ceived value through a much stronger brand. No longer is the auto industry asking whether or not to perform over-the-air updates. Now car manufacturers and tier one suppliers are asking how often and when should updates be provi-ded during the life-cycle of the infotain-ment system to guarantee the highest customer satisfaction.

➌ With dedicated solutions such as Red Bend Fuse, also smaller control units with less memory and less CPU can be updated over-the-air; the delta, which can consist of several updates for individual control units, is transmitted (to the receiver) and distributed to each recipient in the vehicle (via the Update Installer)

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