About the Customer:
Our customer is an Automotive Tier-1 supplier, specializing in vehicle control systems and components.
Keeping up with their commitment of delivering innovative solutions for the automotive industry, they planned to introduce FOTA (Firmware Over-The-Air) update feature in their product lines.
The basic idea was to enable the automotive control units to install software updates from the Cloud Server in real time. Eventually, the customer also wanted the product to be AIS 140 compliant.
Business Challenge:
Customer’s project roadmap, of integrating FOTA in an Automotive Electronic Control Unit (ECU), was confronted with following challenges:
- need for a robust FoTA enabled Bootloader solution.
- lack of expertise and experience in AIS 140.
A CAN/LIN based Bootloader was required for application and ECU reprogramming over the air.
The bootloader was required to be a part of the telematics unit that is tasked with ECU reprogramming over the air and facilitating remote vehicle diagnostics. The expertise in application processes development and testing for FoTA was also required.
A Product Engineering Services partner with ready-to-use components like Board Support Package (BSP) software and low-level device drivers for popular Microcontroller family was sought by the customer.
Having 12+ years of experience in CAN, Bootloader, and vehicle diagnostics, Embitel was chosen to come on-board for this project.
Embitel Solution:
Before embarking on the solution development, we had several rounds of discussion to understand the pain points of the customers. We also analyzed the components that would need to be built from ground zero and found out opportunities where our re-usable components could be integrated.
The image shows the layered software architecture:
The system architecture for the enablement of FOTA included the following components:
- Telematics Control Unit.
- Vehicle control unit.
- Bootloader for telematics and MCU.
- low-level device drivers.
- and the Application Layer.
Our solution comprised:
- Telematics Unit (Renesas) to connect to the server using HTTPS and MQQT protocol.
- CAN/LIN based Bootloader to flash the vehicle ECU.
- CAN/LIN drivers to help the vechicle control unit collect data such as engine speed, vehicle parameters etc. from vehicle interface.
- Low-level device drivers, SPI and UART drivers to facilitate communication between telematics unit and microcontroller.
- Remote diagnostics with UDS.
- Application processor from Telit and Sierra Wireless with GPS and GSM modules for remote server connection; external memory for storing the update.
Apart from them, we deployed our production grade reusable components such as Board Support Package (BSP) software with flash drivers for Renesas Micro and Freescale MCU family.
Here is the system overview of the FoTA solution:
Rigorous testing was performed on both internal servers and servers provided by the customer. We ensured that the components are AIS 140 compliant, as defined in the project scope. Post-delivery support was also provided by our team.
Embitel Impact:
We were able to deliver the project in a very restricted timeframe. Our expertise in providing assistance for AIS 140 compliance was a great value add for the customer.
- 60% of development time was reduced due to our reusable board support package and flash drivers.
- Project was delivered in 4 weeks.
Tools and Technologies:
- Server for testing- Microsoft Cloud.
