How Sibros, Panasonic Automotive, and AWS Collaborate to Reduce Connected Services Integration Challenges During Vehicle Development

Vehicle connectivity is an important set of core technologies employed by many automakers. With connected vehicles, automakers can continue to add value to a vehicle after purchase, which can enhance customer satisfaction and brand appeal. It also allows consumers to consider feature availability separately from the latest model year when making purchasing decisions. However, there is a tremendous amount of effort required to provide a seamless connected vehicle experience to the end customer. Automakers typically must work with many different suppliers, including system integrators, wireless providers, and software vendors to achieve vehicle connectivity. In this blog, we discuss how Sibros and Panasonic Automotive have collaborated using AWS to help automakers reduce connected service integration challenges using Sibros’s Deep Connected Platform alongside Panasonic’s vSkipGen™ solution on AWS.

1. Overview

Connected vehicle services and features typically include Over-The-Air (OTA) updates and telematics features such as concierge services, remote functions (e.g. door lock, unlock), and digital key, to name a few. These vehicle features are typically dependent on the cloud and come with security requirements to ensure unauthorized users do not gain access, which contributes to high development costs and software quality impact. Behind the connected vehicle experience is a complex orchestration of in-vehicle and cloud services, and most of the services responsible for interactions are typically exposed via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

A vehicle’s connectivity applications are usually first tested during critical integration timelines very close to vehicle launch. As a result, strict change controls are enforced to avoid vehicle launch delays. This creates a gap in the vehicle software experience: while mobile applications can be updated and improved easily, vehicle connectivity applications that have access to critical components such as powertrain require a longer timeline. This is because they need to be carefully tested before being deployed in an update. Automakers often factor in contingencies such as unexpected software behaviors in order to meet the vehicle launch.

Software Integration Challenges

In a traditional development lifecycle for connected vehicles, teams from the automaker and its suppliers must wait until a few months away from vehicle series production to begin their integration efforts between the cloud and the vehicle. At this point, the vehicle hardware and software modules are near “production ready” and stable enough for integration testing. That way, the risk of breaking changes (software defects that cannot be released to customers) impacting software integration between different modules is lower and the product being tested is close to or the same as what will be shipped to customers. This creates a strong preference among connected services teams and vendors to begin integration efforts as close to production as possible. The resulting compressed timelines force automaker teams and their respective suppliers to engage in intensive in-person integration efforts that can range from 3 to 9 months to get ahead of any major blockers that could affect the production or release date of the vehicle.

While this collaboration can be very useful, the time pressure and associated costs can be challenging for the vehicle program. The downstream pressure on in-vehicle user experience is high and adds risks due to unexpected software behaviors between services. Suppliers need to collaborate with system integrators to reduce these challenges, which is precisely what Sibros and Panasonic have helped enable using AWS.

The Software Defined Vehicle and Connected Vehicle Synergy

The “Software Defined Vehicle” (SDV) continues to evolve in the Automotive industry and provides opportunities for Automakers to improve their overall vehicle software quality. Initially focused on infotainment systems, the SDV has now expanded to cover the creation of virtual development environments which now support Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and connected vehicle use cases.

By providing a virtual vehicle development environment that emulates the in-vehicle head unit, as well as the CAN bus and other important vehicle signals, developers and system integrators can test earlier in the development process before these costly integration events. This allows automakers to decrease the potential problems caused by integration ahead of schedule. Automaker teams can also have more time to understand the various APIs and create appropriate vehicle side responses. This is where having early access to virtual vehicle development environments which make use of the production level APIs and vehicle signals can reduce time and improve user experience. With Sibros being able to provide production grade connectivity software and API libraries and Panasonic Automotive being able to emulate the user infotainment experience, Automakers can activate this synergy to accelerate development.

2. The Sibros and Panasonic Automotive Connected Vehicle Collaboration

Sibros and Panasonic Automotive have collaborated to help automakers reduce connected service integration problems ahead of critical vehicle timelines. This new workflow consists of using Panasonic vSkipGen™ as a virtual replica of both the infotainment software and the vehicle’s integrated cluster. This virtual environment has internet connectivity as well as backend VirtIO integration into a virtual CAN bus.

Sibros has installed its Deep Logger on the vSkipGen environment and is directly integrated into the virtual CAN bus. Sibros has enabled OTA updates and developed a user accessible OTA application to showcase how customers can visualize and manage updates directly from the vehicle.

By testing in this virtual environment, teams no longer need to wait for production hardware and software to begin their integration efforts. This helps increase software velocity and accuracy between connectivity partners and system integrators to deliver a high-quality product.

Data Collection at the Edge

Deep Logger, which is connected to the virtual CAN bus, captures CAN signals that are also visualized inside the integrated cluster on vSkipGen™. Deep Logger sends the collected data to the cloud where they can be further analyzed or ingested into machine learning pipelines. The types of signals collected at the edge can be managed dynamically from the Sibros Deep Connected Platform to add or remove parameters from the vehicle.

Over the Air Updates

Updates can be configured using a production-level system from the Sibros Deep Connected Platform and sent down to the vehicle to be processed. Specifically on the vehicle side, a component known as Deep Updater will manage the authorization and installation by Electronic Control Unit (ECU) for the target updates. Once received at the vehicle, automaker teams can access the Sibros OTA application to confirm multiple scenarios for the update. For example, simulating and confirming behaviors for cellular connection only updates or ensuring the vehicle can handle conditions where the connectivity is disrupted and vehicle must complete the update.

This allows for automakers to get ahead of the curve as it helps ensure that all expected error cases and application codes from the server can be gracefully managed. A lot of heavy lifting can be done at this step, reducing some of the challenges faced during the final months of development.

Validation of Vehicle User Interfaces

By using vSkipGen™, validation teams can access virtual replicas of their infotainment and integrated cluster software. Panasonic Automotive offers support for a number of Automotive grade operating systems, including support for Android Automotive Operating System (AAOS) version 14, which is used to power the user infotainment interface. This support offers the capability to use the exact same code that will be used by development teams and run on the physical vehicle. User screens, applications, voice assistants, notifications and success and error handling can be validated within the virtual system. Validations can occur for complex workflows where a request is initiated from the mobile phone application but resolved in the vehicle. Using digital key management as an example, when a user initiates the request from the phone and identity and authorization succeed, the vehicle needs to be provisioned to enable access to the door unlock/lock function. Validation testers can verify the provisioning workflow and ensure authentication messages from the integrated cluster and infotainment services operate as expected.

Solution Architecture

vSkipGen™ is currently available as an AWS Marketplace AMI produced by Panasonic Automotive. This environment serves as the central host machine for all other vehicle side components. In the vSkipGen™ environment, Sibros has installed and configured Deep Updater and Deep Logger to communicate with the cloud management dashboard known as Deep Connected platform. Deep Connected Platform is also built and runs on AWS as a SaaS solution. This solution can be purchased on the AWS Marketplace.

Figure 1 below shows a diagram of the demo architecture. It shows the location of each component along with their relationships.

Fig 1. AWS Architecture Diagram of vSkipGen being used with Sibros Deep Connected Components

2. AWS Automotive Innovation Lab – Santa Clara Demonstration

AWS recently opened the AWS Automotive Innovation Lab in Santa Clara, California. This Lab serves as a curation of industry leading automotive demos done in close collaboration with select partners. The purpose of this lab is to showcase how customers can accelerate and transform their automotive workloads on AWS with cutting edge technology and design patterns that incorporate traditional automotive standards and protocols.

Panasonic Automotive and Sibros have launched a collaborative demo in the AWS Santa Clara Lab that will showcase the power of virtual vehicle integration for connected services. In addition to the virtual environment, AWS and Sibros have also collaborated on assembling a physical race car simulator, shown in Figure 2 below.

Fig 2. AWS and Sibros collaborate to build physical race car simulator at Santa Clara Lab

This physical race car simulator is meant to emulate vehicle hardware and will showcase how Software in the Loop (SIL) testing can be integrated into Hardware in the Loop (HIL) testing. The simulator is designed to enable testing in situations where the physical infotainment and integrated cluster are not yet ready but the other vehicle modules are ready for testing. Development teams can use real vehicle signals and messages and feed them directly into a virtualized test environment.

This demonstration shows automakers can use Panasonic vSkipGen™ together with Sibros Deep Connected Platform, Deep Logger and Deep Updater to help manage the lifecycle of vehicle development all the way into production without needing separate tooling, and to help ensure that data collection capabilities can meet the future needs of customers and quality teams.

4. Dive Deeper on Panasonic Automotive, Sibros, and Their Solutions

Panasonic Automotive Systems Company of America, a tier-one automotive supplier, announced the availability of Virtual vSkipGen™ (vSkipGen™) on AWS Marketplace to “shift left” the automotive development lifecycle, allowing engineers and developers to start earlier in the process without physical hardware. The new Panasonic vSkipGen™ is a virtual replica of the physical, 3rd generation Digital Cockpit solution, SkipGen – marking the latest in Panasonic and AWS’s ongoing collaboration to evolve the eCockpit. If you would like to dive deeper on the solution, please see this blog to learn more.

The following diagram provides a high-level composition of the vSkipGen™ AMI on AWS on an EC2 instance type G5G. This instance is powered by NVIDIA GPUs.

Fig 3. High Level Architecture Diagram of vSkipGen™

Sibros, based in San Jose, California, is a connectivity partner and system integrator. Sibros’ Deep Connected Platform (DCP) offers comprehensive and modular embedded firmware and cloud solution designed to revolutionize the management of connected vehicles throughout their entire lifecycle. The platform integrates seamlessly with all automotive systems, delivering data logging, software updates, and command execution capabilities directly to vehicles on the road.

Key features of DCP include:

• Deep Logger for real-time analytics and fleet management
• Deep Updater for managing and deploying OTA software updates
• Deep Commander for secure remote diagnostics and feature activation
• Deep Insights for AI-Powered analytics, including root cause diagnosis, mitigation and insights on product usage.

Below is an image of Sibros Connected Dashboard which shows monitoring for thermal events related to Wheel bearings, tires and brakes

Fig 4: Picture of Deep Connected Platform Dashboard showing Thermal Guardian monitor

Conclusion

This blog demonstrated how automakers can enable cross domain development workflows to improve software development quality and user experience on AWS. This means automakers can save on costs associated with in-person integration efforts. The solutions allow development teams to break down silos between cloud and embedded development obstacles that are caused by hardware dependency and availability. This approach can be employed by globally distributed teams and provides opportunities to decrease development timelines for integrated services. If you are interested in how you can set up this environment to meet your development requirements, please reach out to info@sibros.tech (Sibros) or vSkipGenSupport@panasonicautomotive.com (Panasonic Automotive) to learn more.