by Marek Jersak, Frank Kirschke-biller, Andreas Lindenthal from Luxoft
*This article is a translation of an article written by Luxoft, a group company of DXC Technology. Source: Decoupling hardware and software timelines to shorten the development cycle
The advent of Software Defined Vehicles (SDV) has increased the complexity of automotive software, requiring more features to be completed in shorter development times.
As a result, most automakers are decoupling hardware and software development to reduce development time, increase production speed, and ultimately improve the economic efficiency of their entire business. The most common initiatives include starting testing earlier in the development lifecycle and increasing virtualization to improve flexibility and scalability in the testing environment. It is expected that the separation of hardware and software will become even more decoupled in the future, necessitating a shift away from the waterfall automotive product development process. Luxoft is helping automakers achieve their transformation through the transition to SDV. With its unique combination of extensive automotive knowledge and software development expertise and knowledge, Luxoft is the ideal partner for automakers looking to increase the scope of separation between hardware and software to maximize development efficiency. Toner.
Our goal
Decoupling software from hardware means decoupling hardware dependencies from the software development process, which can reduce product development time. This is achieved by establishing two parallel development processes, software, and hardware, with different speeds of progress. There are multiple layers of separation between hardware and software, each with varying benefits. Each of these benefits must be considered.
- The operating system (OS) abstraction layer decouples the OS from the underlying hardware architecture by introducing a virtual environment. This virtual environment provides the necessary hardware/software interfaces and functions that are used and defined by software. This abstraction technique is used, for example, for decoupling ECU hardware and software, allowing software development and software testing to be decoupled from the physical ECU hardware. Since most software testing can be performed in this virtual environment, testing in the actual hardware environment is limited to final hardware and software integration and performance testing only. In addition, you will be able to upgrade to a more powerful E/E architecture by significantly reducing integration costs and increasing software reusability. This is possible because software complexity is decoupled from hardware complexity.
- The in-vehicle network abstraction layer enables the integration of virtual ECUs. It constitutes a network of software-defined vehicles with virtual network drivers (such as VCAN and vEthernet). Most ECU and vehicle network integration tests can be performed in this environment. Hardware and software integration tests are limited to actual wiring harness tests using vehicles. This abstraction separates the interface from the vehicle and allows the development of E/E architectures that are separate from vehicle development.
- Functional development decoupled from hardware allows for post-SOP functionality delivery. Differentiation of customer functions based on customer requirements or market analysis results can be realized in a short period of time.
- You will be able to seamlessly develop in-vehicle off-board functions using cloud backend services. Fleet monitoring, including mobility services and complex safety and security services (essential for autonomous driving), is decoupled from the cloud backend.
Solution efforts
Application of cloud automation solutions and CI/CD/CT methodologies to extend the test environment using virtual hardware targets and provide the test capacity required to accelerate the automatic execution of software test cases in a short time. Many objectives are achieved, such as achieving high software exam coverage The same is true for virtual ECU integration testing.
By focusing on essential hardware and software integration testing and eliminating manual debugging of software on a wide range of hardware targets and test vehicles, hardware and software integration time can be significantly reduced. In addition, feature development progresses quickly and hardware requirements can be met in a shorter period of time.
Software drives hardware development.
Since the software will be developed as a product and then updated in the field using the OTA function, it is necessary to set additional milestones regarding the software even after the SOP.
For in-vehicle functionality delivered through backend services, it is possible to separate complex in-vehicle software into a cloud backend (with rich software complexity management capabilities).
The software lives on after SOPs, but the hardware (vehicle) undercarriage evolves with each generation. For the software installed in the vehicle, we always obtain the appropriate software status according to the generation of the vehicle. The digital lifecycle process continues to manage and update software throughout its lifecycle.
Start early and take the lead
Taking a software-first development approach, where hardware and software are developed separately from the beginning of the process, has many advantages.
- Reduce development cycle by at least 6 months
- Improve SOP stability and predictability with higher test coverage and software quality
- Reduced development costs during initial and post-deployment phases
- Build a new value stream by distributing and deploying software as a product using OTA functions
