Dive Brief:
- Continental and Amazon Web Services have created a new cloud-based, virtual Electronic Control Unit Creator for automotive software developers, suppliers and third parties, the companies said Thursday.
- The vECU can shorten development time by up to 12 months, according to a press release.
- The product is essentially a digital twin of a physical unit that would be installed in a vehicle, allowing software developers to configure ECUs virtually and run code for debugging in a simulated vehicle environment.
Dive Insight:
As automakers introduce more software-based vehicles that support over-the-air updates, the platform may provide a more efficient way to test new software in a simulated real-world environment before it’s deployed in a vehicle.
The vECU creator is part of the Continental Automotive Edge framework and runs on AWS’ cloud service, allowing developers to access it from anywhere. It also lets developers test software designed to run on microcontrollers and vehicle processor hardware that doesn’t exist yet.
Currently, most vehicle software debugging can only be addressed after the physical ECUs are built, according to Continental. The vECU Creator allows engineers to test and debug continuously in the cloud while the hardware is developed.
“A great vehicle relies on both quality hardware and software. Our virtual ECU Creator will make it easy for our software experts to work in parallel, enabling us to create applications for the software-defined vehicle that enhance the driver’s safety and experience,” Continental Automotive CTO Gilles Mabire said in a statement.
As vehicles become more complex, debugging software grows more difficult and complicated for developers and automakers.
According to Goldman Sachs, the number of lines of code in a vehicle doubled from 100 million in 2015 to 200 million in 2020 due to more electrified vehicle controls and autonomous driving capabilities. The company says modern vehicles may require up to 650 million lines of code by 2025. AWS says developing and maintaining all this software will be difficult for automakers without cloud-based development and virtual testing.
Continental’s vECU Creator runs software for both Classic and Adaptive Autosar developed by its subsidiary Elektrobit. Autosar is a platform for developing software-defined vehicles, serving as a standardized software architecture for automotive ECUs. It’s used by Continental, Ford, General Motors, Stellantis, Toyota, Mercedes-Benz and the Volkswagen Group, as well as dozens of other vehicle software developers.
AWS is Continental’s preferred cloud provider. The two companies have been working together since 2021.
