Truck & Off-Highway Engineering – June 2019

10 June 2019 TRUCK & OFF-HIGHWAY ENGINEERING

FROM TOP: ZF; AIRBIQUITY

TELEMATICS

Security, bandwidth drive over-the-air development

Over-the-air (OTA) updating has
evolved rapidly from a limited function
to a wide-ranging technology for keep-
ing vehicle software up to date. As OTA
moves deeper into the mainstream,
commercial-vehicle suppliers are focus-
ing on security and techniques that ef-
ficiently allow downloading of a grow-
ing number of files.
Truck and off-highway equipment
suppliers are racing to extend their of-
ferings. Navistar augmented its Wi-Fi
OTA technology with cellular services
earlier this year. Volvo Trucks and Mack
updated their updating programs last
fall. Daimler Trucks recently went glob-
al with its OTA offerings. Caterpillar
now uses the technology to add fea-
tures, not just for software patches.
Several engine makers use connectiv-
ity to tweak systems so engines run more
efficiently. Security is a common thread
for all connected vehicle programs.
“We’ve provided OTA for our 15-liter
engine for two years. We intentionally
thought about security during the devel-
opment process,” said Larry Hilkene,
chief cybersecurity engineer at
Cummins. “It’s a risk management issue.”
Commercial-vehicle OEMs continue
to develop the techniques for updating
software, but they’re also leveraging
advances made by automotive compa-
nies. There are differences between en-
abling OTA software updates and data
management for commercial vehicles
and passenger cars. However, the use
cases are quite different.
“One example is restricting commer-
cial-vehicle software update approvals
to commercial fleet operators versus
drivers, whereas for non-commercial
vehicles the drivers can provide soft-
ware update approvals,” said Scott
Frank, VP of Marketing at Airbiquity.
“The OTA software and service delivery
management capabilities also need to
accommodate unique commercial and
non-commercial vehicle requirements
on the vehicle side, cloud side, and
back-end connections with the automo-
tive OEMs and any authorized suppliers
and third parties.”

Cloud services are a central element

in OTA strategies. Many vehicle compa-

nies started by using their own cloud

services for software updates, but that’s

changed over time. Public cloud ser-

vices have improved their security while

dropping effective prices, often making

them more efficient than private clouds.

“We use the Microsoft Azure IoT

Hub,” said Jiri Benes, embedded soft-

ware engineer at ZF’s Digitalization

Department. “This cloud computing

platform is providing good support to

our team, thus allowing us to focus on

the expansion of our business rather

than handling OTA internally. Using a

standardized and secured end-to-end

communication protocol also helps us

to future-proof our connected business

and enables the growth of bi-directional

Internet of Things connectivity.”

Airbiquity designed its software dis-

tribution platform, OTAmatic, to work

with public or private clouds as well as

private on-premise data centers. That

approach makes it easy for OEMs and

fleet owners to implement their own

strategies while using common tools.

“OTAmatic was designed to leverage

standards-based technology as much as

possible to strengthen the solution and

ease integration,” Frank said. “It can also

be broken down into functional compo-

nents that can integrate into existing

OTA solutions and ecosystems, and can

be deployed on private clouds, public

clouds, and on-premise data centers.”

Scalability is a major issue. Most OTA

programs are now fairly limited in

scope, but that’s expected to change

quickly. Many users will want to scale

up OTA offerings to include more elec-

tronic control units, infotainment sys-

tems and other additional systems.

“The biggest hurdle is having a portal

for customer interface that is stable and

up to date,” Benes said. “The backend

software and hardware must be able to

handle many simultaneous clients, which

is something we are continuously working

on in order to deliver the best customer

service. Any telematics company is only

as good as its bandwidth to support.”

Terry Costlow

TECHNICAL INNOVATIONS

Over-the-air

updating is

becoming

more common

as connectivity

rises.

Lab experiments aim to

improve security of updates.