Software-Defined Vehicle Innovation: Inside Tata Elxsi's AVENIR Framework

What is SDV?

Software defined vehicle (SDV) is the next great leap seen in the automotive industry. Here, electromechanical systems are transformed to an intelligent, multi-functional, and cloud operated system which is facilitated by intelligent software design. The provision of over-the-air (OTA) updates for different functionalities standout as a major advantage since the now hardwired vehicles remain unchanged throughout their lifecycle. Scalable open architecture for embedded edge or SOAFEE offers a software framework for vehicles which supports cloud-native development and vehicle edge platform deployment.

What are the requirements of an SDV development and validation framework?

Figure 1: Requirements of SDV development and validation framework

Tata Elxsi AVENIR: SDV Framework from Tata Elxsi

Tata Elxsi is proudly presenting its platform agnostic SDV development and validation framework: Tata Elxsi AVENIR, which can meet all the requirements explained in previous section.

Figure 2: Overall Architecture of Tata Elxsi AVENIR SDV framework

Figure 2 depicts the overall architecture of Tata Elxsi AVENIR SDV framework. One of the key subsystems in the framework is the cloud-native virtual development platform that enables the development, building, and testing applications entirely on cloud. Automated and flexible provisioning of developer environments and CI/CT/CD pipelines to enable faster and more scalable software development is available. The platform accelerates the delivery of new features and updates to the vehicle software throughout its lifecycle, by enabling continuous integration and delivery pipelines. Another important subsystem in the framework is the validation platform which supports both virtual and physical validation. The virtual validation framework makes use of the virtual ECU targets with environment parity for testing the applications on cloud. The framework can also make use of the physical test benches across the globe and orchestrate testing.

The deployment platform in the framework enables feature subscription and deployment of application via OTA updates. The subscription manager provides options to subscribe/unsubscribe, expire/renew, upgrade/ downgrade features, manage payment, prepaid subscription etc. OTA allows services to be automatically deployed on vehicles. The digital twin framework provides support for hosting digital twin models. The software stack contains the hypervisor, OS, container runtime, and middleware which are designed to be compliant with SOAFEE architecture. The applications shall be deployed as services employing the service-oriented middleware layer with SOME/IP communication. The software stack shall be capable of running mixed critical workloads and run OTA updates. Tata Elxsi AVENIR can run multiple containerized applications for EV, ADAS, HMI, V2X etc.

Figure 3 shows the Tata Elxsi AVENIR developer portal which provides cloud-based control, development, management, and testing of SDV stack based on the user roles. One could also author, edit, and execute the test cases from the developer portal.

Figure 3: Tata Elxsi Avenir SDV Developer portal

SDV validation the framework can be seen in Figure 4. It makes sure that all the individual modules as well as the integrated software is working as intended. Overall working of the Tata Elxsi AVENIR framework is shown in Figure 5 for LKA feature as an example. One could see the simulation environment, LKA container, HMI container with warning, and the SOME/IP messages exchanged between them.

Figure 4: SDV validation framework

Figure 5: Tata Elxsi Avenir SDV framework capability demonstrated with LKA feature as an example

Shift left approach

Virtualisation is a key concept in the SDV framework. Virtualisation tools will be used in Tata Elxsi AVENIR with which up to L4 level environment parity can be achieved. Additional implementations done in the virtualization tools enabled a close parity with the HPC. This enables the SDV software stack to be validated much earlier and can compensate for the time lost waiting for the actual embedded hardware. Critical issues or bugs identified at this stage can be fixed with ease thereby saving time, money, and effort put into testing and bug fixing at a later stage. An overall increased efficiency is evident in the entire SDV development and validation activity due to this shift left approach.

Offerings from Tata Elxsi

Tata Elxsi AVENIR SDV framework offerings are shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Offerings of the Tata Elxsi AVENIR SDV framework

Tata Elxsi AVENIR can be used as a starting point for OEMs, Tier Ones, Chip vendors, and Tool vendors for their SDV journey. The scalable SDV stack allows easy portability to multiple HPCs with ease. Figure 7 shows the solution offerings available for different customer segments; OEMs, Tier-1, and Chip vendors.

Figure 7: Tata Elxsi AVENIR offerings for OEMs, Tier-1, and Chip vendors

Conclusion

SDV being the future, it requires an appropriate framework for development, validation, continuous deployment. This blog report discussed about the SDV development and validation framework from Tata Elxsi – Tata Elxsi AVENIR. It explained the building blocks of Tata Elxsi AVENIR and how OEMs, Tier Ones, and Chip vendors can use Tata Elxsi AVENIR as a starting point for their SDV journey.