The Ojo Yoshida Report Expert Panel Breaks Down the Software Defined Vehicle: The Elephant in the Room

The Ojo-Yoshida Report recently hosted an expert panel discussion on what moderator and Editor-in-Chief Junko Yoshida calls Software-Defined Vehicle: The Elephant in the Room. While much of the industry buzz about software-defined vehicles (SDVs) is around the applications and functional possibilities, there is a vast technological complexity undergirding the user experience to make these capabilities work and deliver safety and reliability. The panel covered a variety of perspectives from semiconductors to systems on the ins and outs of bringing SDVs to life.

Panelists included Moshe Anschel, SDV expert and previously technical fellow, vehicle compute principal engineer at GM, Stefan Buerkle, regional president, cross-domain computing at Bosche, Bill Stewart, automotive America's marketing at Infineon, and Piyush Sevalia, executive vice president of marketing at SiTime. It was a rich discussion including safety, standardization, cost, user experience and much more.

Here are a few highlights:

• What does SDV mean from across the supply chain:
  
  The industry is moving from domain-based architectures and distributed compute from separate ECUs toward a centralized CPU that runs the software. Traditionally, software has been optimized for hardware, but SDV is an entirely new paradigm. As Stefan Buerkle puts it, "SDV is a shift in the principle of how we develop a vehicle. In the past, we designed hardware and optimized software for the hardware. Now, we design software and optimize the hardware. We don't want to develop new software for every new generation of vehicles. We want to keep [the] software stream running-that's a big shift in mindset."
  
  The technological complexity makes implementation not so easy. This is especially true in the areas of automotive sensing data and analysis used in decision making along with designing in mechanisms to ensure functional safety and high levels of security and quality, along with a great user experience.

• What keeps the panelists up at night:
  
  As vehicles move to digitization, SDVs must continue to ensure safety. For instance, while SDV vehicles can shave response time off anti-lock breaking systems (ABS) many systems must be redesigned to make this happen-the breaking hardware must be redefined to optimize the software. Specifically, Bill Stewart says, "...with a lot of these downstream changes, you are completely changing safety-critical systems. The entire safety case that an OEM or a tier one has designed around has now changed because your fundamental system has changed. And all of those assumptions have to be redone."

• What are key SDV development challenges:
  
  Data synchronization across the vehicle is a major challenge. As Piyush Sevalia states, "…You have all these disparate systems inside the car that must communicate to each other and then aggregate that communication outside the car to the infrastructure…we are on the timing side. It's the physical layer. For all this data to be synchronized, you'd better have a good timing signal that works…"
  
  Moshe Anschel, felt that SDV vehicles are not simply smart-phones on wheels but that they are akin to data-centers on wheels. You want your investment to be able to scale, for instance capabilities you develop will need to scale across level 1 or level 4 ADAS vehicles. Central compute means that power and heat are issues but because SDV is a consumer application, you also need to keep costs down.
  
  Standardization is a third challenge. Today many OEMs are building their own solutions even though they are solving common challenges. Virtual models for simulation from tool chain vendors can help simplify the process especially when it comes to safety and security, and to lower cost and increase efficiencies-OEMs can use existing models that work instead of inventing their own. Standardizing can ultimately make software easier to develop and deploy.

From Hardware-Driven to Software-Powered: the Evolution of Innovation

SDV is still in the early stages of development. With so many innovative solutions, a great deal is happening in the space. Still, as the panel notes, cost pressure is coming to bear and the use of standards in key areas will make development more efficient and productive for standard functions, leaving points of differentiation open to next-era automotive innovation.

Watch the full webinar: Software-Defined Vehicle: Elephant in the Room.