How to address safety and security for software-defined vehicles

Just as cellphones morphed into pocket computers, vehicles have become connected smart devices on wheels. With more lines of code than the largest operating system, the current complexity of a software-defined vehicle (SDV) can negatively impact time-to-market and, ultimately, the pace of innovation. Even more importantly, at least for the automotive sector, these complexities can impede the ability to meet safety and security requirements.

Reimagining the vehicle architecture can address these challenges. With an ecosystem of partners to help them embrace this engineering revolution, manufacturers can separate safety and security from non-critical features, enabling them to ease the burden of certification while accelerating user-facing innovation using open-source tools. In the process, they can bring new features and functionality to market faster than ever before

Driving Toward the Future with the Cloud Car Ecosystem

Traditional automotive manufacturers focus on safety first within walled gardens, while traditional software developers focus on speed to market and interoperability with other systems. While both approaches have their advantages, it has led to a chasm that many OEMs find hard to overcome. Bridging this gap and benefiting from both divergent focal points demands a distinctly different architecture and an ecosystem of partners with different areas of expertise.

Working with an ecosystem of partners like mimik and others in Wipro’s Cloud Car ecosystem brings immediate expertise in multiple disciplines, from user experience to security, APIs to microservice architectures, and safety SEMs to agile DevOps teams. While this approach is a departure from existing team structures, the ability for these ecosystem players to work in tandem to actualize SDVs simplifies compliance and certification while providing a framework for accelerated innovation.

A New Approach Enables Different Architecture

As with any new advancements, vehicle technology has evolved over time. When technology was first introduced into vehicles, it was a series of domains and controllers. The next evolution moved to zonal compute platforms with multiple control centers or brains. But to realize software-defined vehicles that can interact with other entities inside and outside the vehicle, the next iteration must be able to support seamless connectivity and interoperability with other systems.

The most effective and pragmatic way of achieving this is the hybrid edge cloud computing model, in which all computing nodes within and outside the vehicle can act as cloud servers and connect with other systems at the API and microservice level. This approach futureproofs the automotive industry as demand for interactions with other entities and systems increases.

For automotive software engineering, this means the adoption of cloud and edge cloud technologies. OEMs will need to embrace cloud-native engineering principles with microservices, containers, zero trust and automation wherever possible. These modern technologies will allow vehicle manufacturers to take advantage of the coding techniques that SaaS software engineers use to improve agility. It will help automotive engineering deliver features faster, more efficiently and with significantly lower costs.

This transformation is possible by separating the critical from non-critical features. Critical applications must be on safe, proven platforms. By isolating the security and safety features, it is easier to maintain, diagnose and debug these features. This, in turn, streamlines certification processes by ensuring these features are not integrated with non-essential functions such as infotainment.

Alternatively, non-critical apps can go on containers and utilize the benefits of microservice architecture. This strategy means that agile teams can add and update features quickly with no negative impact on security or safety. And these non-critical features can be built on open-source platforms. For example, Linux is a good choice for non-critical customer-centric features and could promote faster innovation.

SDVs’ Safe and Secure Road to Tomorrow

The current technology design of vehicles is untenable. It is too complex. This entanglement makes it difficult to make changes, troubleshoot issues or add new features. Moreover, in a highly complex system, it is harder to find vulnerabilities that allow a hack.

Conversely, a new architecture and a completely different approach such as a Cloud Car ecosystem can resolve a variety of technology issues that hinder SDVs. This new framework dramatically improves visibility to code integration, making it easy to protect safety and security apps. The resulting simplicity promotes innovation and improves time-to-market. OEMs need to respond to changing market demands to remain highly competitive. Simplifying vehicle architecture by identifying and describing the integration points via APIs and running microservices where possible will enable the innovation needed to remain competitive while ensuring the safety and security of critical features.