Edited from: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/uUeBWkQoGumsLiyIPo6obw
Cloud native is a cloud-based development and deployment framework. Applications based on cloud native frameworks and development concepts are called cloud native applications. Cloud Native is a word composed of "Cloud" and "Native". "Cloud" means that the application is deployed in a cloud environment, while "Native" means that the application is designed with the cloud environment in mind, runs on the cloud platform in the best possible way, and makes full use of the elasticity and distribution of the cloud platform. Advantages.
With the in-depth exploration of the value of automotive software, the understanding and research and development of "software definition" within and outside the industry are becoming more and more in-depth. There are differences among different users on the road to cloud native in the automotive industry. Some traditional car companies have just started, while some have become leaders and have made important progress in adopting new technologies. In the context of software-defined cars, some notable trends can be observed:
- With software as the core, we put people's needs first and focus on providing high-quality service experience. Cars are no longer just cold mechanical products, but have become more heart-warming.
- The car becomes a smart space that integrates functions such as office, entertainment, payment, and social interaction, and needs to meet individual needs.
- New car companies realize the rapid integration and output of various services through the application decoupling of micro-services, the establishment of service platforms and the use of Internet of Vehicles technology.
- The development trend of software is towards micro-service and containerization.
While meeting the mandatory functional requirements of regulations in different regions, a brand new model needs to provide hundreds of functional options, and the number of possible combinations of these options will increase geometrically. Addressing the requirements of these functional configurations requires a methodology that enables large-scale development, testing, and delivery of individual functions with minimal disruption and interdependencies. In addition, the smooth operation of software is also inseparable from the support of hardware.
Automotive software functions are becoming more and more diverse and complex, placing higher demands on hardware platforms. Unlike the two- to three-year replacement cycle of consumer electronics products, the average service life of cars tends to be longer. This brings us to a rather challenging question: what kind of hardware platform can provide enough flexibility, computing power and data processing power to meet the requirements required by complex scenarios that have not yet happened?
The answer is software defined. Software definition not only refers to the activation and control of specific functions by software, but also includes the abstraction of the underlying hardware, so that the same software can run smoothly on different hardware. In addition, software definition must also have the ability to be continuously upgraded and updated, and be developed and built based on cloud technology. This software-defined approach provides flexibility and adaptability, allowing the vehicle to adapt to future technological advances and changes in functional requirements. By adopting a software-defined approach, automakers can better respond to changing market demands while offering more functional options to consumers. This approach can also reduce the cost of development and maintenance, improve the quality and reliability of the software, and provide better protection for the overall performance and user experience of the vehicle.
A software-defined car must meet the following four requirements: **
1. Portability
The software must be able to run on different hardware platforms to achieve cross-platform compatibility of the same software. In this way, no matter in different models, different manufacturers or different hardware configurations, the software can run smoothly, ensuring the consistency and reliability of functions.
2. Cloud development and upgrade
Software must be developed, built and upgraded based on cloud technology to minimize development and maintenance costs. Through cloud development and upgrades, manufacturers can quickly introduce new functions and fix software defects without physically updating each vehicle, improving development efficiency and user experience.
3. Real-time, functional safety and confidentiality
Taking into account the particularity of the automotive industry, the software must meet real-time requirements to ensure timely response to various instructions and feedback from the vehicle. At the same time, the software must have functional safety and be able to identify and handle potential failures and risks to ensure the safety of the vehicle and passengers. In addition, it is crucial to protect the confidentiality of the software to prevent unauthorized access and potentially malicious attacks.
4. Open architecture
Software architecture must be open to create a larger ecosystem so that everyone can participate. In this way, not only can car manufacturers and suppliers jointly develop and integrate software, but also third-party developers and partners can be attracted to join in to create more innovative and rich functions. Open architecture can also promote software interoperability and improve overall system flexibility and scalability.
As car functions become more complex and diversified, the size of car software code becomes increasingly larger. In this context, cloud-native development methods have become an effective way to promote the cloud infrastructure industry to reduce costs and shorten development time. Currently, cloud computing has entered a mature stage, and cloud native, as an important technology that supports digital transformation, shows great potential in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence, big data, edge computing, and 5G. In the future, more and more applications will be developed based on cloud platforms for local applications, and cloud computing provides many advantages such as resource isolation, distribution and high availability for cloud native applications, maximizing the advantages of cloud computing.
Cloud native applications have some typical application scenarios in car companies:
1. Mainstream DevOps practices usually adopt microservices and containerization.
For content providers and travel service providers in the automotive industry, whether it is speech recognition or the provision of content such as weather and stocks, they can continue to iterate and update their products based on cloud-native technologies and concepts.
2. Data analysis and artificial intelligence fields such as the Internet of Vehicles are naturally suitable for using containerization technology.
By containerizing the training and inference process, stateless algorithms can quickly draw conclusions, which is not only fast but also saves resources. Therefore, AI-related scenarios are ideal for adopting containers and cloud-native technology stacks. Through cloud native technology, data analysis of the upstream and downstream chains of production and manufacturing can unify the entire business process and achieve automated, refined and intelligent management.
** 3. Hybrid and multi-cloud car networking collaboration.
In the hybrid multi-cloud Internet of Vehicles scenario, applications are allowed to flow and migrate freely on various clouds. No matter what cloud the application and middleware are deployed on, users can migrate at will, from one cloud provider to another without modifying anything.
Cloud-native application
The application of cloud-native technology enables agile development of applications, significantly improves delivery speed, reduces business trial and error costs, efficiently responds to user needs, enhances user experience, and accelerates the process of business innovation. Currently, the automotive industry is in a period of change, and there is a relationship of competition and cooperation between various automotive software communities. Much of the automotive software community is driving the adoption of cloud-native technologies in the automotive space. Among them, the SDV Group led by Microsoft, the SOAFEE organization led by ARM, etc. Domestic companies such as Joyson, Neusoft, Chuangda, and Yingchi Technology have joined the SOAFEE organization to jointly promote the application of cloud native technology in the automotive field. develop.
2. Introduction to SOAFEE Architecture
In 2021, Arm and other founding members jointly announced the establishment of the SOAFEE (Scalable Open Architecture For Embedded Edge) Special Interest Group (SIG), which unites car manufacturers, semiconductor companies, software companies, and cloud companies. Technology leaders are coming together to define a new open standards architecture to enable the lowest level technology stack for software-defined cars, providing a reference implementation that enables cloud-native technologies such as microservices, containers and orchestration systems to be combined with automotive functional safety for the first time. Thereby keeping the environment equal. The launch of SOAFEE aims to solve three major problems: to enable software reuse in different chip solutions, to easily implement software deployment from cloud to edge, and to move the development process forward so that developers can start software development earlier and Deploy software updates after the car hits the market.
SOAFEE
In the case where traditional data center or server-side cloud technology cannot be directly applied to the automotive industry, the special requirements of automobiles for functional safety and real-time performance have become the most critical issues. The SOAFEE architecture meets the automotive industry's needs for real-time performance and functional safety by extending existing cloud technology. SOAFEE is based on the System Ready open standard in Arm Project Cassini and implements the abstraction of the underlying hardware.
The architecture of cloud native in the automotive field consists of the following two parts: the bottom layer is the hardware computing platform, and the top layer is firmware, which serves as the interface between system software and hardware. On top of the system software, there are various applications and services, which run in independent environments. These environments are called containers. In a cloud-native-based system, these containers are developed, tested, and verified in the cloud environment, and then the appropriate software and hardware resources are configured for the applications and services in each container through the software module of the orchestrator, so that they can Ability to perform tasks in the car. At the same time, in the cloud, there is also a continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) module responsible for managing updates to applications and services.
By introducing the concept of cloud native and SOAFEE architecture, automotive software development can better meet the automotive industry's requirements for functional safety and real-time performance, improve development efficiency, and promote business innovation.
The SOAFEE cloud-native architecture unifies the interfaces between hardware, firmware and system software through the System Ready open standard, achieving the first level of abstraction. At the same time, the problem of sharing resources between different operating systems is solved through the hypervisor, and the container runtime and hardware abstraction layer (HAL) are used as another level of abstraction. The figure below shows a schematic diagram of SOAFEE cloud native architecture.
SOAFEE Cloud Native Architecture
In the cloud, SOAFEE not only builds the same software environment, but also builds a virtual hardware environment (Virtual ECU) to ensure consistency between the cloud and the terminal. SOAFEE's important contribution is to improve the orchestrator into a software module capable of handling functional safety and real-time requirements.
The SOAFEE architecture solution takes advantage of the characteristics of containers and can configure different software and hardware resources for each container. For example, autonomous driving functions and services are placed in independent containers, and through an orchestrator, a hardware and software environment that meets the highest level of functional safety requirements can be configured to provide services for the container. On the other hand, navigation, for example, does not require the highest level of functional safety, since the power consumption would be very high and there would be redundant design of the application. For such a container configuration, the highest level of functional safety is not required, and mechanisms such as split-lock are generally not required to support the container. Therefore, there are different functional safety requirements between different containers, so that a flexible foundation can be built and the orchestrator can configure the appropriate software and hardware environment to meet the requirements of these different containers, thereby realizing the functionality of the entire system security goals.
When functions and services are executed in the vehicle, the underlying hardware must provide good scalability to cope with various computing processing needs, while achieving optimal operating performance within a certain power consumption range. Additionally, it must provide technology to handle real-time, functional safety, and confidentiality. The technology provided by ARM can fully meet these requirements. Therefore, ARM can start from terminal IP technology to improve the architecture of software-defined cars and integrate the needs of the automotive industry chain for software-defined cars. SOAFEE covers a variety of different hardware and IP architectures. As long as they comply with the standard interface between software, hardware architectures other than ARM can also be used on SOAFEE.
After adopting SOAFEE, the software development costs of car manufacturers and first-tier suppliers will be significantly reduced. At the same time, through the continuous introduction of innovative after-sales services, new revenue sources can be created for car manufacturers. For IC design and software suppliers, they can better differentiate their products and attract more cloud application developers to participate in automotive innovation. Ultimately, consumers will enjoy more satisfying customized car functions and experience.
In addition, the development process of a traditional car takes three to four years, and the specifications of IC chips are the standards three or four years ago. The SOAFEE architecture can perform left-shift development through SOAFEE and the hardware development platform before IC specifications are determined, thereby determining the computing requirements of applications and services, reducing the risk of specification discrepancies and shortening the entire development cycle.
Many companies have begun using cloud platforms to develop automotive software. Since SOAFEE's launch, its membership has quadrupled to over 50. These members come from all aspects of the automotive supply chain, covering chip suppliers, software providers, system integrators, cloud service providers, OEM manufacturers and first-tier suppliers. New members join every week, further expanding SOAFEE's influence and cooperation network. If the ecosystem develops as expected, it is likely that many players will gradually switch to SOAFEE. ARM processors dominate all ECU areas. Once major OEMs, Tier1 suppliers and major chip manufacturers start adopting ARM-compatible systems and software, SOAFEE will become the de facto standard. SOAFEE will become an indispensable and important part of the future automotive ecosystem, providing innovative solutions for automotive software development.
3. Introduction to the Eclipse Software Defined Vehicle Working Group **
In March 2022, the Eclipse Foundation announced the establishment of the Software Defined Vehicle Working Group on its official website. The core members of the working group include Microsoft, which develops the most software in the world, Eclipse, one of the world's largest open source foundations, and three of the top five global auto parts companies: Bosch, ZF and Conti.
The Eclipse SDV working group focuses on using open source and open specifications to accelerate the innovation of automotive-grade automotive software stacks. The working group provides a forum for individuals and organizations, including Accenture, Arm, Bosch Group, CARIAD, Continental, Microsoft, NXP Semiconductors, SUSE, Toyota Motor and ZF Friedrichshafen AG, to build and promote needed Open source software, specifications, and open collaboration models to create a scalable, modular, extensible, industry-ready, open-licensed automotive software platform that supports the development and deployment of in-car and surrounding-vehicle applications.
SDV-related projects focus on a "code first" approach and are committed to building the industry's first open source software stack and related tools to support the core functions of new vehicles. The SDV Working Group believes that this approach will have a material impact on the industry more quickly. The new projects, led by leaders such as Bosch, Microsoft, Continental, ZF, Cariad, Accenture and Eteration, have made their software available to any organization wishing to leverage it for their own vehicle development.
To support the transformation of software-defined cars, key players from the technology and automotive industries are actively developing open source in-vehicle application runtime stacks, cloud-based vehicle operating systems, and highly integrated development tool chains. The Open Source Software-Defined Automotive Initiative aims to provide usable open source code for in-vehicle software across different models, product lines, brands, organizations and time periods. This will greatly accelerate the speed of innovation, production and large-scale vehicle production capabilities with software as the core, significantly reduce the complexity of new vehicle design, and improve efficiency at the same time. Industry players benefit from being able to focus on innovation while saving time and costs on non-differentiating elements such as real-time operating systems, specific parts of the middleware layer, or communication protocols.
Eclipse SDV has currently carried out 32 projects. The following briefly introduces the Velocitas and Kuksa projects of Eclipse SDV. Eclipse Velocitas is an end-to-end, scalable, modular, and open source development toolchain for creating containerized and non-containerized in-vehicle applications.
Features of Eclipse Velocitas
Eclipse Velocitas:
**
- Project lifecycle management for updating in-vehicle application repositories via the command line interface.
- Vehicle abstraction support provides a type-safe and auto-completion way to focus on business logic by using the generated vehicle model at the code level. Vehicle models are generated from a standardized API, which hides vehicle-specific signals and electrical/electronic architecture details, allowing in-vehicle applications to be portable between different electronic and software architectures.
- Microsoft Visual Studio Code's integration with DevContainer helps quickly install everything you need to start local development, while tasks and launch configurations help launch runtime services, other applications, and tests.
- Skeletons and examples of in-vehicle applications help to understand how to write in-vehicle applications using KUKSA.VAL runtime services.
One of the main functions of the Eclipse Kuksa open source project is to abstract vehicle data and interfaces into a common format based on vehicle signal specifications, etc. VAL is the core component of the Kuksa project. It is mainly responsible for mapping and converting various non-standard formats of data in the vehicle into a unified VSS standard data format, and at the same time providing various standard interfaces for interaction with the outside.
System architecture of Kuksa.VAL
- Ready-to-use CI/CD workflows can build (for multiple architectures), test, document and deploy containerized in-vehicle applications without relying on electrical/electronic architecture, saving setup time.
Driven by all aspects of the automotive supply chain, including chip suppliers, software providers, system integrators, cloud service providers, OEM manufacturers and first-tier suppliers, the application of cloud native technology in the automotive field will usher in Accelerated development. By improving software development, construction, management and update methods, the efficiency of the entire automotive software system development is greatly improved, while development and maintenance costs are reduced, further accelerating the arrival of the era of software-defined cars.
references:
[1] Song Ke. AUTOSAR specifications and vehicle controller software development. [M]. Chemical Industry Press. 2019-01
[2] China Automotive Basic Software Ecology Committee. Vehicle SOA Software Architecture Technical Specification 1.1. [R]. 2021-09
[3] Dr. Joachim Schlosser. Why Scrum for embedded software. [R]. 2020-07
[4] Stefan Wagener.Jochen Möller.Christof Menzenbach. How high-performance computers shape the user experience in the cockpit of the future. [R].
[5] JASPAR Next Generation High-Speed Network WG. What is the conqueror in the SOA platform for the future in-vehicle networks? [R]. 2021-06
[6] ARM. How the SOAFEE Architecture Brings A Cloud-Native Approach To Mixed Critical Automotive Systems. [R]. 2021-09
[7] Jochen Steuerwald. A tool and workflow approach for automotive ECUs using AUTOSAR Classic. [R].2020-06
[8] Steffen Kuhn. Combined application of agile practices and functional safety in automotive software development. [R]. 2020-10
[9] STEVE HOWARD.JILL BRITTON. Claiming Compliance for Coding Standards. [R].
[10] Trista Lin.David Fernandez Blanco.Juleixis Guariguata. Communication Management in Automotive Service Oriented Architectures. [R]. 2021-11
[11] dSPACE Inc. The future of agile software development and validation for autonomous vehicles. [R]. 2021
[12] Oded Mann.Amit Shah. Future E/E vehicle architectures and the shifting goal post for mainstream OTA adoption. [R]. 2021-10
[13] W3C.GENIVI. Service Oriented Architecture is coming to your vehicle program. [R].2021-04
[14] Anders Kallerdahl. How can we design and configure systems where Adaptive and Classic AUTOSAR co-exist? [R]. 2020-11
[15] Christian Götz. How to Build a Reliable Connected Car Platform with MQTT. [R]. 2020-02
[16] Robert Bosch. INTRODUCTION TO ECLIPSE ICEORYX [R]. 2020-02
[17] Vikrant Bhangay.Shehan P R.Renjith G. Modern day eCockpit Architecture-Approaches & Challenges. [R]. 2020-04
[18] China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. Software-defined automotive service API.
[19] Omkar Panse. Service oriented architecture for software driven vehicles.
[20] ARM. Scalable Open Architecture For the Embedded Edge. [R]. 2021
[21] David Rush.Erich Meier. The Future of Work Digital Transformation in Engineering. [R].2021
[22] Rensas.Opensynergy. Implement virtual I/O device(virtio) standard. [R]. 2021
[23] Gong Xiaoping. Model-based design and development of service-oriented applications. [R]. 2021-05
[24] (France) Nicolas Navit, (France) Francis Simon-Leon. Automotive Embedded System Handbook. [M]. Machinery Industry Press. 2016-01
[25] Wang Jun. IT digital transformation in the automotive industry—DevOps. [R]. 2022-01
[26] Yang Guoliang. Improving the competitiveness of automotive software through Shift Left. [R]. 2021-04
[27] Cloud Native Industry Alliance. Cloud Native Development White Paper. [Z]. 2020-07
[28] China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. China Automobile Basic Software Development White Paper 2.0. [Z]. 2021-09
[29] Yang Shichun. Technical foundation of autonomous vehicle platform. [M]. Tsinghua University Press. 2020-06
[30] Xiao Meng. Middleware and SOA in autonomous driving software architecture. [R]. 2021-10
END has been edited from: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/uUeBWkQoGumsLiyIPo6obw
Cloud native is a cloud-based development and deployment framework. Applications based on cloud native frameworks and development concepts are called cloud native applications. Cloud Native is a word composed of "Cloud" and "Native". "Cloud" means that the application is deployed in a cloud environment, while "Native" means that the application is designed with the cloud environment in mind, runs on the cloud platform in the best possible way, and makes full use of the elasticity and distribution of the cloud platform. Advantages.
With the in-depth exploration of the value of automotive software, the understanding and research and development of "software definition" within and outside the industry are becoming more and more in-depth. There are differences among different users on the road to cloud native in the automotive industry. Some traditional car companies have just started, while some have become leaders and have made important progress in adopting new technologies. In the context of software-defined cars, some notable trends can be observed:
- With software as the core, we put people's needs first and focus on providing high-quality service experience. Cars are no longer just cold mechanical products, but have become more heart-warming.
- The car becomes a smart space that integrates functions such as office, entertainment, payment, and social interaction, and needs to meet individual needs.
- New car companies realize the rapid integration and output of various services through the application decoupling of micro-services, the establishment of service platforms and the use of Internet of Vehicles technology.
- The development trend of software is towards micro-service and containerization.
While meeting the mandatory functional requirements of regulations in different regions, a brand new model needs to provide hundreds of functional options, and the number of possible combinations of these options will increase geometrically. Addressing the requirements of these functional configurations requires a methodology that enables large-scale development, testing, and delivery of individual functions with minimal disruption and interdependencies. In addition, the smooth operation of software is also inseparable from the support of hardware.
Automotive software functions are becoming more and more diverse and complex, placing higher demands on hardware platforms. Unlike the two- to three-year replacement cycle of consumer electronics products, the average service life of cars tends to be longer. This brings us to a rather challenging question: what kind of hardware platform can provide enough flexibility, computing power and data processing power to meet the requirements required by complex scenarios that have not yet happened?
The answer is software defined. Software definition not only refers to the activation and control of specific functions by software, but also includes the abstraction of the underlying hardware, so that the same software can run smoothly on different hardware. In addition, software definition must also have the ability to be continuously upgraded and updated, and be developed and built based on cloud technology. This software-defined approach provides flexibility and adaptability, allowing the vehicle to adapt to future technological advances and changes in functional requirements. By adopting a software-defined approach, automakers can better respond to changing market demands while offering more functional options to consumers. This approach can also reduce the cost of development and maintenance, improve the quality and reliability of the software, and provide better protection for the overall performance and user experience of the vehicle.
A software-defined car must meet the following four requirements: **
1. Portability
The software must be able to run on different hardware platforms to achieve cross-platform compatibility of the same software. In this way, no matter in different models, different manufacturers or different hardware configurations, the software can run smoothly, ensuring the consistency and reliability of functions.
2. Cloud development and upgrade
Software must be developed, built and upgraded based on cloud technology to minimize development and maintenance costs. Through cloud development and upgrades, manufacturers can quickly introduce new functions and fix software defects without physically updating each vehicle, improving development efficiency and user experience.
3. Real-time, functional safety and confidentiality
Taking into account the particularity of the automotive industry, the software must meet real-time requirements to ensure timely response to various instructions and feedback from the vehicle. At the same time, the software must have functional safety and be able to identify and handle potential failures and risks to ensure the safety of the vehicle and passengers. In addition, it is crucial to protect the confidentiality of the software to prevent unauthorized access and potentially malicious attacks.
4. Open architecture
Software architecture must be open to create a larger ecosystem so that everyone can participate. In this way, not only can car manufacturers and suppliers jointly develop and integrate software, but also third-party developers and partners can be attracted to join in to create more innovative and rich functions. Open architecture can also promote software interoperability and improve overall system flexibility and scalability.
As car functions become more complex and diversified, the size of car software code becomes increasingly larger. In this context, cloud-native development methods have become an effective way to promote the cloud infrastructure industry to reduce costs and shorten development time. Currently, cloud computing has entered a mature stage, and cloud native, as an important technology that supports digital transformation, shows great potential in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence, big data, edge computing, and 5G. In the future, more and more applications will be developed based on cloud platforms for local applications, and cloud computing provides many advantages such as resource isolation, distribution and high availability for cloud native applications, maximizing the advantages of cloud computing.
Cloud native applications have some typical application scenarios in car companies:
1. Mainstream DevOps practices usually adopt microservices and containerization.
For content providers and travel service providers in the automotive industry, whether it is speech recognition or the provision of content such as weather and stocks, they can continue to iterate and update their products based on cloud-native technologies and concepts.
2. Data analysis and artificial intelligence fields such as the Internet of Vehicles are naturally suitable for using containerization technology.
By containerizing the training and inference process, stateless algorithms can quickly draw conclusions, which is not only fast but also saves resources. Therefore, AI-related scenarios are ideal for adopting containers and cloud-native technology stacks. Through cloud native technology, data analysis of the upstream and downstream chains of production and manufacturing can unify the entire business process and achieve automated, refined and intelligent management.
** 3. Hybrid and multi-cloud car networking collaboration.
In the hybrid multi-cloud Internet of Vehicles scenario, applications are allowed to flow and migrate freely on various clouds. No matter what cloud the application and middleware are deployed on, users can migrate at will, from one cloud provider to another without modifying anything.
Cloud-native application
The application of cloud-native technology enables agile development of applications, significantly improves delivery speed, reduces business trial and error costs, efficiently responds to user needs, enhances user experience, and accelerates the process of business innovation. Currently, the automotive industry is in a period of change, and there is a relationship of competition and cooperation between various automotive software communities. Much of the automotive software community is driving the adoption of cloud-native technologies in the automotive space. Among them, the SDV Group led by Microsoft, the SOAFEE organization led by ARM, etc. Domestic companies such as Joyson, Neusoft, Chuangda, and Yingchi Technology have joined the SOAFEE organization to jointly promote the application of cloud native technology in the automotive field. develop.
2. Introduction to SOAFEE Architecture
In 2021, Arm and other founding members jointly announced the establishment of the SOAFEE (Scalable Open Architecture For Embedded Edge) Special Interest Group (SIG), which unites car manufacturers, semiconductor companies, software companies, and cloud companies. Technology leaders are coming together to define a new open standards architecture to enable the lowest level technology stack for software-defined cars, providing a reference implementation that enables cloud-native technologies such as microservices, containers and orchestration systems to be combined with automotive functional safety for the first time. Thereby keeping the environment equal. The launch of SOAFEE aims to solve three major problems: to enable software reuse in different chip solutions, to easily implement software deployment from cloud to edge, and to move the development process forward so that developers can start software development earlier and Deploy software updates after the car hits the market.
SOAFEE
In the case where traditional data center or server-side cloud technology cannot be directly applied to the automotive industry, the special requirements of automobiles for functional safety and real-time performance have become the most critical issues. The SOAFEE architecture meets the automotive industry's needs for real-time performance and functional safety by extending existing cloud technology. SOAFEE is based on the System Ready open standard in Arm Project Cassini and implements the abstraction of the underlying hardware.
The architecture of cloud native in the automotive field consists of the following two parts: the bottom layer is the hardware computing platform, and the top layer is firmware, which serves as the interface between system software and hardware. On top of the system software, there are various applications and services, which run in independent environments. These environments are called containers. In a cloud-native-based system, these containers are developed, tested, and verified in the cloud environment, and then the appropriate software and hardware resources are configured for the applications and services in each container through the software module of the orchestrator, so that they can Ability to perform tasks in the car. At the same time, in the cloud, there is also a continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) module responsible for managing updates to applications and services.
By introducing the concept of cloud native and SOAFEE architecture, automotive software development can better meet the automotive industry's requirements for functional safety and real-time performance, improve development efficiency, and promote business innovation.
The SOAFEE cloud-native architecture unifies the interfaces between hardware, firmware and system software through the System Ready open standard, achieving the first level of abstraction. At the same time, the problem of sharing resources between different operating systems is solved through the hypervisor, and the container runtime and hardware abstraction layer (HAL) are used as another level of abstraction. The figure below shows a schematic diagram of SOAFEE cloud native architecture.
SOAFEE Cloud Native Architecture
In the cloud, SOAFEE not only builds the same software environment, but also builds a virtual hardware environment (Virtual ECU) to ensure consistency between the cloud and the terminal. SOAFEE's important contribution is to improve the orchestrator into a software module capable of handling functional safety and real-time requirements.
The SOAFEE architecture solution takes advantage of the characteristics of containers and can configure different software and hardware resources for each container. For example, autonomous driving functions and services are placed in independent containers, and through an orchestrator, a hardware and software environment that meets the highest level of functional safety requirements can be configured to provide services for the container. On the other hand, navigation, for example, does not require the highest level of functional safety, since the power consumption would be very high and there would be redundant design of the application. For such a container configuration, the highest level of functional safety is not required, and mechanisms such as split-lock are generally not required to support the container. Therefore, there are different functional safety requirements between different containers, so that a flexible foundation can be built and the orchestrator can configure the appropriate software and hardware environment to meet the requirements of these different containers, thereby realizing the functionality of the entire system security goals.
When functions and services are executed in the vehicle, the underlying hardware must provide good scalability to cope with various computing processing needs, while achieving optimal operating performance within a certain power consumption range. Additionally, it must provide technology to handle real-time, functional safety, and confidentiality. The technology provided by ARM can fully meet these requirements. Therefore, ARM can start from terminal IP technology to improve the architecture of software-defined cars and integrate the needs of the automotive industry chain for software-defined cars. SOAFEE covers a variety of different hardware and IP architectures. As long as they comply with the standard interface between software, hardware architectures other than ARM can also be used on SOAFEE.
After adopting SOAFEE, the software development costs of car manufacturers and first-tier suppliers will be significantly reduced. At the same time, through the continuous introduction of innovative after-sales services, new revenue sources can be created for car manufacturers. For IC design and software suppliers, they can better differentiate their products and attract more cloud application developers to participate in automotive innovation. Ultimately, consumers will enjoy more satisfying customized car functions and experience.
In addition, the development process of a traditional car takes three to four years, and the specifications of IC chips are the standards three or four years ago. The SOAFEE architecture can perform left-shift development through SOAFEE and the hardware development platform before IC specifications are determined, thereby determining the computing requirements of applications and services, reducing the risk of specification discrepancies and shortening the entire development cycle.
Many companies have begun using cloud platforms to develop automotive software. Since SOAFEE's launch, its membership has quadrupled to over 50. These members come from all aspects of the automotive supply chain, covering chip suppliers, software providers, system integrators, cloud service providers, OEM manufacturers and first-tier suppliers. New members join every week, further expanding SOAFEE's influence and cooperation network. If the ecosystem develops as expected, it is likely that many players will gradually switch to SOAFEE. ARM processors dominate all ECU areas. Once major OEMs, Tier1 suppliers and major chip manufacturers start adopting ARM-compatible systems and software, SOAFEE will become the de facto standard. SOAFEE will become an indispensable and important part of the future automotive ecosystem, providing innovative solutions for automotive software development.
3. Introduction to the Eclipse Software Defined Vehicle Working Group **
In March 2022, the Eclipse Foundation announced the establishment of the Software Defined Vehicle Working Group on its official website. The core members of the working group include Microsoft, which develops the most software in the world, Eclipse, one of the world's largest open source foundations, and three of the top five global auto parts companies: Bosch, ZF and Conti.
The Eclipse SDV working group focuses on using open source and open specifications to accelerate the innovation of automotive-grade automotive software stacks. The working group provides a forum for individuals and organizations, including Accenture, Arm, Bosch Group, CARIAD, Continental, Microsoft, NXP Semiconductors, SUSE, Toyota Motor and ZF Friedrichshafen AG, to build and promote needed Open source software, specifications, and open collaboration models to create a scalable, modular, extensible, industry-ready, open-licensed automotive software platform that supports the development and deployment of in-car and surrounding-vehicle applications.
SDV-related projects focus on a "code first" approach and are committed to building the industry's first open source software stack and related tools to support the core functions of new vehicles. The SDV Working Group believes that this approach will have a material impact on the industry more quickly. The new projects, led by leaders such as Bosch, Microsoft, Continental, ZF, Cariad, Accenture and Eteration, have made their software available to any organization wishing to leverage it for their own vehicle development.
To support the transformation of software-defined cars, key players from the technology and automotive industries are actively developing open source in-vehicle application runtime stacks, cloud-based vehicle operating systems, and highly integrated development tool chains. The Open Source Software-Defined Automotive Initiative aims to provide usable open source code for in-vehicle software across different models, product lines, brands, organizations and time periods. This will greatly accelerate the speed of innovation, production and large-scale vehicle production capabilities with software as the core, significantly reduce the complexity of new vehicle design, and improve efficiency at the same time. Industry players benefit from being able to focus on innovation while saving time and costs on non-differentiating elements such as real-time operating systems, specific parts of the middleware layer, or communication protocols.
Eclipse SDV has currently carried out 32 projects. The following briefly introduces the Velocitas and Kuksa projects of Eclipse SDV. Eclipse Velocitas is an end-to-end, scalable, modular, and open source development toolchain for creating containerized and non-containerized in-vehicle applications.
Features of Eclipse Velocitas
Eclipse Velocitas:
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- Project lifecycle management for updating in-vehicle application repositories via the command line interface.
- Vehicle abstraction support provides a type-safe and auto-completion way to focus on business logic by using the generated vehicle model at the code level. Vehicle models are generated from a standardized API, which hides vehicle-specific signals and electrical/electronic architecture details, allowing in-vehicle applications to be portable between different electronic and software architectures.
- Microsoft Visual Studio Code's integration with DevContainer helps quickly install everything you need to start local development, while tasks and launch configurations help launch runtime services, other applications, and tests.
- Skeletons and examples of in-vehicle applications help to understand how to write in-vehicle applications using KUKSA.VAL runtime services.
One of the main functions of the Eclipse Kuksa open source project is to abstract vehicle data and interfaces into a common format based on vehicle signal specifications, etc. VAL is the core component of the Kuksa project. It is mainly responsible for mapping and converting various non-standard formats of data in the vehicle into a unified VSS standard data format, and at the same time providing various standard interfaces for interaction with the outside.
System architecture of Kuksa.VAL
- Ready-to-use CI/CD workflows can build (for multiple architectures), test, document and deploy containerized in-vehicle applications without relying on electrical/electronic architecture, saving setup time.
Driven by all aspects of the automotive supply chain, including chip suppliers, software providers, system integrators, cloud service providers, OEM manufacturers and first-tier suppliers, the application of cloud native technology in the automotive field will usher in Accelerated development. By improving software development, construction, management and update methods, the efficiency of the entire automotive software system development is greatly improved, while development and maintenance costs are reduced, further accelerating the arrival of the era of software-defined cars.
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