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The development of perception functions for tomorrow’s automated vehicles is driven by enormous amounts of data: often exceeding a gigabyte per second and reaching into the terabytes per hour. Data is typically gathered by a fleet of dozens of mule vehicles which multiply the data generated into the hundreds of petabytes per year. Traditional methods for fueling data-driven development would record every bit of every second of a data logging drive on solid-state drives located on a PC in the vehicle. Recorded data must then be exported from these drives using an upload station which pushes to the data lake after arriving back at the garage. This paper considers different techniques for curating logged data.

This paper explores how to enhance your autonomous system (AS) testing capabilities and quality assurance using a completely automated hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test environment that interfaces to or simulates autonomous sensor technology, such as cameras, radar, LIDAR, and other key technologies, such as GNSS/maps and V2X communication. The key to performing such real-time testing is the ability to stimulate the various electronic control units (ECUs)/sensors through closed-loop simulation of the vehicle, its environment, traffic, surroundings, etc., along with playback of captured sensor data and its synchronization with key vehicle bus and application data. The latest technologies are introduced, which allow for direct sensor data injection to ECUs/line replaceable units (LRUs) for test interaction and stimulus, in addition to dynamic, on-the-fly modification of sensor data streams. It will be shown how these techniques are integrated with current HIL systems.

Connectivity has become an essential need for daily device users. With the car projected to be the “ultimate mobile device”, connectivity modules will eventually be mainstream in every car. Network providers are expanding their infrastructure and technology to accommodate the connected cars. Besides making voice and emergency calls the connected car will be sharing data with telematics service providers, back end systems and other vehicles. This trend will increase vehicle modules, complexity, entry points and vulnerabilities. This paper will present the current connected car architectures. The paper will present current architectural issues of the connected car and its vulnerabilities. The paper will present a new proposed architecture for the future connected car that enhances efficiency and security.

Today open source software is widely used in different domains like Desktop systems, Consumer electronics (smart phones, TV, washing machines, camera, printers, smart watches), Automotive, Automation etc. With the increased involvement of the open source software in the different domains including the safety critical ones, there has been a requirement of the well-defined test strategy to test and verify such systems. Currently there are multiple open source tools and frameworks to choose from. The paper describes the various open source test strategies and tools available to qualify such systems, their features, maintenance, community support, advantages and disadvantages. Target audience would be the software engineers, program managers, using an open source stack for the product development.

The Aerospace and Defense industry is currently challenged in multiple ways - cost cutting and sequestration on the defense side, and spurt of growth on the commercial aviation side of business. While these are opposing trends, both will impose severe challenges to the management of product development process for both the Air framers and the suppliers. The challenge becomes severe as the innovation expectations become rapid with increases in embedded software content in avionics and the advent of a new category of autonomous ground, marine, and air systems. Clearly, the industry need is to have a product development process that allows for reducing costs, while increasing embedded software quality and thereby product quality even in an iterative development process.

Electronics components are estimated to be between 9 to 15 % of a total vehicle cost, and this trend will remain strong for the next years. The amount of electronics content in a vehicle has grown steadily since 1970's, and as a result, development challenges such as testing and validation are a key aspect of its overall development costs. Testing costs can amount easily to US$ 500 k in medium complex automotive parts of a vehicle (e.g. instrument cluster) depending on a specific OEM customer demand, and this on top of limited regional laboratory capacity can also lead to increased testing time. The goal of this paper is to outline key aspects of electronics in vehicle components testing, including overall costs and timing, and propose a lean approach to optimize such costs & timing. The key aspects of such optimization include not only resources, but also laboratories and upfront OEM customer planning.

It is not news anymore when somebody talks about increasing software content in today's vehicles, transportation systems and machinery. The software content and complexity has grown so tremendously and rapidly that even the most advanced product/software development techniques leave more to desire in view of evolving product life-cycles, feature content and need for development efficiency. Model-Based Design (MBD) techniques and V-Cycle based development processes address the significant need for managing complexity, and to some extent, efficiency in product development. Further efficiency in the development process can be achieved by enabling virtual validation of software components. The virtual validation environment for software not only has the ability to run the software component as a standalone unit for performance validation, but is also extended to the validation of the performance of the entire embedded software of an ECU, multiple ECUs and the entire system.

Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing is an indispensable tool in the software development process for electronic control units (ECUs) and Logical Replaceable Units (LRUs) and is an integral part of the software validation process for many organizations. HIL simulation is regarded as the tried-and-tested method for function, component, integration and network tests for the entire system. Using the Model based design approach has further enabled improved and faster HIL implementations in recent years. This paper describes the changing requirements for HIL simulation, and how they need to be addressed by HIL technology. It also addresses the challenges faced while setting up a successful HIL system: namely the division of tasks, the total cost of ownership, budget constraints and tough competition and the adaptability of a HIL simulator to new demands. These requirements are discussed using a dSPACE HIL system architecture that was designed from the ground-up to address these needs.

This paper presents an assessment of competing algorithms for normalizing volume levels between tracks and/or sources in an automotive infotainment system. Portable media players such as smartphones and iPod® devices are extremely popular for listening to music collections or streaming content from the Internet. The lack of normalization is a source of dissatisfaction if the user experiences significant changes in audio level between tracks. Several commercially available algorithms exist to solve this problem. This research includes a double-blind listening test comparing an audio sample processed with the different leveling algorithms to an unprocessed reference. The listener preference rating is recorded and results indicate which algorithm is preferred.

In automotive infotainment systems, multiple types of digital audio signals are usually present. Some come from internal sources, such as a CD or USB stick, and some come from external sources, such as an internet stream or digital radio. These sources usually have different sample-rates, and may also be different from one or more system sample-rates. Managing and transporting these signals throughout the system over different sample-rate domains require detailed upfront architecture analysis and correct system design to ensure signal quality is maintained to the desired level. Incorrect design can add significant user-perceivable noise and distortion. This paper examines the key analysis factors, the effects of poor design and the approaches for achieving robust signal handling and ensuring desired signal quality.

Accurate evaluation of vehicles' transient total power requirement helps achieving further improvements in vehicle fuel efficiency. When operated, the air-conditioning (A/C) system is the largest auxiliary load on a vehicle, therefore accurate evaluation of the load it places on the vehicle's engine and/or energy storage system is especially important. Vehicle simulation models, such as "Autonomie," have been used by OEMs to evaluate vehicles' energy performance. However, the load from the A/C system on the engine or on the energy storage system has not always been modeled in sufficient detail. A transient A/C simulation tool incorporated into vehicle simulation models would also provide a tool for developing more efficient A/C systems through a thorough consideration of the transient A/C system performance. The dynamic system simulation software MATLAB/Simulink® is frequently used by vehicle controls engineers to develop new and more efficient vehicle energy system controls.

Hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) typically have complex interaction between different powertrain devices and incorporates complex electronic control unit (ECU) network. For the electrified vehicles of the future, comprehensive ECU tests are more necessary than ever before, as the complexity and amount of embedded software increases at a breathtaking speed. The V-cycle is a widely recognized approach in the development of ECUs spanning from offline controller development to the final implementation on production hardware. This paper describes a case study with a focus on electric drive components and electric drive controller development. The V-cycle for motor controller development involving phases control design, rapid control prototyping and target implementation is explained in detail. The model components needed for HEV simulation were selected from dSPACE Automotive Simulation Models (ASM).

Currently, hybrid and electric drive control systems are being developed for many types of platforms in the aerospace, automotive, and commercial vehicle industries. These systems also entail the use of Battery Management Systems (BMS) to handle their demanding power needs. However, the development of these technologies brings increased system complexity, evident in the platform variants and even more so in the control algorithms of various electronic control units (ECUs). There is also a greater need to handle system-level control strategies, via communication networks and command software. This increased system complexity poses new challenges for software design and ECU system validation, mandating the need for simulation tools that can easily handle the inherent system complexity, while providing cost-effective, industry-proven verification tools and processes.

Estimation and prediction of residual life and reliability are serious concerns in life cycle management for aging structures. Laboratory testing replicating fatigue loading for a typical military aircraft wing skin was undertaken. Specimens were tested until their fatigue life expended reached 100% of the component fatigue life. Then, scanning electron microscopy was used to quantify the size and location of fatigue cracks within the high stress regions of simulated fastener holes. Distributions for crack size, nearest neighbor distances, and spatial location were characterized statistically in order to estimate residual life and to provide input for life cycle management. Insights into crack initiation and growth are also provided.

Currently, Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) testing is the defacto standard for ECU verification and validation at the majority of the Commercial Vehicle OEMs and Tier1 suppliers. HIL Testing is used to shorten development and testing time for both engine and machine control systems. In order to use this process, many of these companies have to develop and maintain expertise in the area of Model-based development (MBD). This paper introduces an approach which allows for the effective use of HIL systems without having to directly work in a MBD environment. Many HIL tests can be done with stimulus and response analysis of the ECUs, given core knowledge of the expected behavior of its control software and I/O subsystems. For hardware interface and diagnostics validation, this open-loop testing of the controller may suffice. It is important to provide the tester with capabilities to easily modify these stimuli and evaluate the responses.

The Controls and Software Engineering Team at BorgWarner Drivetrain Systems has successfully employed model-based software development for the past several years. Their drivetrain system control software, developed using MATLAB/Simulink/Stateflow, and autocoded using TargetLink, is on the road in many passenger vehicle applications. Using these tools, BorgWarner has realized the widely recognized benefits of model-based design; such as increased speed to market, improved quality, and reduced complexity. Validating algorithms early through simulation and rapid prototyping, then translating them to production software through automatic code generation has proven very successful for BorgWarner. When starting with model-based design, the BorgWarner team focused on developing the core application control algorithms in the modeling environment. Lower-level software such as I/O drivers, the task scheduler, and communication logic was still hand-coded.

This presentation focuses on several examples of partnerships between tool suppliers and embedded software developers in which state-of-the-art tools are used to optimize a variety of electric and hybrid vehicle architectures. Projects with Automotive OEMs, Tier One Suppliers as well as with academic institutions will be described. Due to the growing complexity in multiple electronic control units (“ECUs”) inter-communicating over numerous network bus systems, combined with the challenge of controlling and maintaining charges for electric motors, vehicle development would be impossible without use of increasingly sophisticated tools. Hybrid drive trains are much more complex than conventional ones, they have at least one degree of freedom more.

Model-based software development is increasingly being used to develop software for electronic control units (ECUs). When developing safety-related software, compared to non-safety-related software development, additional requirements specified by relevant safety-standards have to be met. Meeting these requirements should also be considered to be best practices for non-safety-related software. This paper introduces a model-based reference workflow for the development of safety-related software conforming to relevant safety-standards such as IEC 61508 and ISO 26262. The reference workflow discusses requirements traceability aspects, software architecture considerations that help to support modular development and ease the verification of model parts and the code generated from those model parts, and the selection and enforcement of modeling and coding guidelines.

Model-based software development and automatic production code generation have become increasingly established in recent years. The aerospace industry and other industries, such as automotive, have widely adopted and successfully deployed these methods in many different series production programs worldwide. This brought various benefits, such as a reduction in development times and improved quality due to more precise specifications, and early verification and validation by means of simulation. Model-based development is a general purpose development approach which can be applied to a wide variety of applications. Safety-critical systems, like found in aerospace applications to a large extent, but also found increasingly more often in other industries, like automotive or medical devices, pose special additional requirements to this process. This paper describes how model-based design and automatic production code generation can be applied to the development of safety-critical software.

Increasingly, the exchanges of data in complex ECM (Electronic Control Module) systems rely on multiple communication networks across various physical and network layers. This has greatly increased system flexibility and provided an excellent medium to create well-defined exchangeable interfaces between components; however this added flexibility comes with increased network complexity. A system-level approach allows for the optimization of data exchange and network configuration as well as the development of a comprehensive network failure strategy. Many current ECM systems utilize complex multi-network communication strategies to exchange and control data to components. Recently, Caterpillar implemented an HIL (Hardware-In-the-Loop) test system that provides an approach for developing and testing a comprehensive ECM network strategy.