Maintaining ADAS With Automotive OTA

Bolt some metal, plastic, and glass together, throw on pieces of rubber here and there, fill in a few gallons of different petrochemicals—a motorized vehicle is born. This was true for a century, an era that ended in about 1979. In 2022 the picture is radically different. Not only do software costs account for 10% of the vehicle Bill of Material (BOM), they are expected to reach 50% by 2030. A revolution in automobile design and manufacturing is happening within less than a decade. 

This series of articles drills down on the conditions and consequences of that tectonic shift in the mobility sector—factors that will determine the future of the vehicle and the vehicle of the future. 

Our topic today is…

Maintaining ADAS 

It is morning rush hour on the 101. The vehicle in front of you suddenly brakes, due to an obstruction ahead. The advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS) of your car is supposed to warn you but fails to do so. The reason is that the calibration of the sensors in your car wasn’t updated. Now, this technology is compromised. Fortunately, you are alert and avoid a collision, but you have to swerve onto the shoulder. 

Our scenario illustrates what may happen with complex ADAS over time. Delays in updates and bug fixes have many causes, some of them utterly mundane: sometimes the shop has no appointment in due time, sometimes the system notification to the driver goes unnoticed or is blithely ignored. We should never forget that a trip to the dealership is rarely welcome. A system may thus be compromised for extended periods, with drivers not even aware of the impact and still assuming they have a fully functioning system supporting them. The consequences of even such a soft failure can be severe.

Let us have a look at the technological aspect. The calibration of certain ADAS components is not a trivial matter. Dynamic sensor calibration is generally the preferred method for camera sensors, and sometimes the only method specified. Radar sensors, on the other hand, often require static adjustment followed by an on-road procedure. 

Dynamic calibration involves initiating the process with a factory scan tool, or aftermarket equivalent, and then driving the car at specific speeds on relatively straight roads with clear lane markings. This is done for 5 to 30 minutes or until the scan tool indicates that the calibration has been concluded. On some cars, a warning light or messages on the dash will go out when the calibration has been successful.

Certain systems calibrate best when there is minimal surrounding traffic, but others will calibrate more rapidly when many objects are detected by the sensor. Oftentimes, calibration cannot be done if rain or snow obscures lane markings, or other factors make it impractical or unsafe to drive at the required speeds.

As we see, there are three interconnected parameters at play: Risk not discovered, risk not corrected, and correction of risk factors which takes a lot of time and effort.

The good thing is that the answer to these challenges is here. The technology to monitor such systems via connectivity exists. With the right solution, the following crucial tasks can be continuously performed:

1. Active monitoring of ADAS to ensure optimal performance.
2. Dynamic Calibration for troubleshooting, repair, updates of ADAS without the need to visit a dealership.
3. ADAS performance monitoring by OEMs to understand their effectiveness under real-world conditions.
4. Measuring system effectiveness, for what can’t be measured can’t be accurately managed.

The Sibros Offer

Sibros’ mission is to equip OEMs with the tools to achieve these goals and avoid any pitfalls in the process. With our Deep Logger, we enable a 360-degree view of vehicle data with millisecond-level data collection from every ECU. Our Deep Updater supports vehicle lifecycle management by providing a secure vehicle-to-cloud embedded firmware system capable of end-to-end OTA software updates. Sibros equips OEMs with the following:  

• One platform for updates, logging, and commands
• Precise and flexible data logging
• Full vehicle and whole life cycle software updates
• Library of pre-built network and diagnostic stacks
• Hardware agnostic and cloud-ready soultion
• Powerful cloud portal
• Rapid integration by API
  

We pave the way for maximum safety, cost efficiency, and customer satisfaction with a total system design approach that connects the vehicle to the cloud seamlessly with no additional hardware required. 

The Upshot

Drivers of today know that their vehicle is increasingly defined by software. They expect differentiation between brands through technological innovation and they demand more sophisticated features.

In particular, they have no desire to visit the dealership unless there is a mechanical problem. With smartphones and other devices, they have gotten accustomed to remote services, updates, and bug fixes and find it difficult to understand why this is not implemented for their car.

The automotive sector’s transition from hardware to software will not simply have to be managed, but proactively addressed. OEMs that are in the driver’s seat, that offer new desirable features and avoid aggravating consumers with software glitches, will be the winners of this race. The ones who claim the future.

Sibros delivers on the requirements that OEMs have in this rapidly developing sector. We provide safety, reliability, and scalability on one unified platform. Talk to us today.