With the implementation of software-defined vehicle application scenarios, the trend of automobiles shifting from transportation to intelligent mobile terminals is becoming more and more obvious. In the context of software-defined vehicles, domain-oriented and zone-oriented are still the two mainstream solutions for E/E architecture. Relevant data predicts that from 2025 to 2030, software development and related applications will bring a huge increase in the output value of intelligent networked vehicles.
Source: Society of Automotive Engineers of China
In the era of software-defined vehicles, the "pain points" and "countermeasures" of China's automotive software testing
Driven by new technologies and new experiences, automotive electronics are evolving in the direction of intelligent networking, and the development workload of automotive electronics software has become huge and the iteration speed is getting faster and faster, so verification in the software development process has become particularly important. The increase in software development will inevitably lead to an increase in testing requirements, and the huge test volume makes automotive software testing face a series of new issues:
First, at present, automotive software-related work is highly dependent on foreign tool chains. The reason is that there is a lack of corresponding tool chain products in China or the existing tool chain is not perfect, but after years of development, foreign countries have a complete tool chain.
Second, software validation tools are costly. These include the long time costs of cross-border procurement, the high purchase cost of tool products, and the high maintenance costs of the software with annual fees.
Third, the tool chain provider has weak technical support for China. At present, most of the tool chain manufacturers belong to foreign manufacturers, and they pay more attention to the software development needs of the European and American markets. However, after years of development, China's automotive software technology has achieved a leading position in some fields, and new technologies have been born in the process. These technologies have not been applied abroad, and there is a lack of corresponding tool chains to support verification.
In the face of the lack of support for the development of domestic automotive software technology by the "existing software tool chain", Kunyi Electronic Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Kunyi Electronics") opened the second growth curve at the beginning of the concept of "software-defined vehicles", and developed a series of application software, HIL software and hardware systems and intelligent driving related test tools in the "second stage".
Kunyi Electronics Development History | Source: Kunyi Electronics
At the same time, in response to the above three pain points, domestic manufacturers represented by Kunyi Electronics also submitted their own answers. At the "2024 5th Software-Defined Vehicle Forum and AUTOSAR China Day", Xie Zhenxing, technical director of the HIL business department of Kunyi Electronics, said that Kunyi Electronics has been committed to overcoming the development bottleneck of China's automotive software testing tool chain.
First of all, Kunyi Electronics proposes products covering the whole domain of automotive electronics and provides complete systematic solutions.
Secondly, Kunyi Electronics' full-stack self-developed software and hardware products can effectively reduce the cost of the testing tool chain as much as possible.
Finally, by providing localized technical consulting services and deeply customized product development, we can respond to the growing needs of customers for software products.
In the years of development, Kunyi Electronics is committed to the development of embedded system R&D test tool chain. In response to the pain points of software development and verification, Kunyi Electronics has developed XIL tool chain products that match the different stages of the V model by relying on full-stack self-research capabilities and a complete R&D team to help intelligent vehicle software development and verification.
Based on the "V" model, Kunyi Electronics continues to improve the product ecology of the tool chain
According to Xie Zhenxing, based on the "V" model, Kunyi electronic tool chain products have basically formed an ecological closed loop, and the ecological closed loop is still developing. On the left side of the "V" model is the top-down design and verification of products and technical capabilities of Kunyi Electronics in system modeling and analysis, model-in-the-loop, rapid prototyping controller, product-level code generation, etc., while the right side of the "V" model covers bottom-up testing and verification such as component-level software-in-the-loop, hardware-in-the-loop, vehicle-in-the-loop and road testing.
Source: Kunyi Electronics
In the different stages on the right side of the "V" model, that is, the test verification stage, Kunyi Electronics provides different test solutions to correspond to:
- In the software testing stage, we provide SIL test solutions with the characteristics of Kunyi Electronics.
- In the software and hardware integration test and function integration test stage, we provide a one-stop HIL test solution for the whole domain.
Source: Kunyi Electronics
From the perspective of automotive functional domains, Kunyi Electronics' HIL test system covers the testing needs of different domains such as power chassis, three-electric new energy, intelligent networking, intelligent driving, intelligent body, intelligent cockpit, etc., and at the same time, in the face of the diverse needs of different domains, Kunyi Electronics' HIL test system also has four advantages:
First, the modular platform can quickly respond to various customization needs and support third-party software calls.
Second, it is compatible with a wide range of test and development environments, realizes closed-loop testing including models, and can also complete open-loop testing of simulation nodes.
Thirdly, independently developed independently, Kunyi Electronics' HIL test system has completely independent intellectual property rights.
Fourth, support in-depth customization, the development of technology is changing with each passing day, and the demand for products is also changing dynamically.
In response to the concept of "data-driven software development" in the process of automotive software development, Kunyi Electronics has created a complete closed-loop test system for data-driven software development. In the vertical spatial dimension, the cloud-local full-link coverage is realized. There is a management platform and a data platform in the cloud, and a complete software and hardware platform in the local area, among which the software platform (VCar System) provides customers with all the software required for testing, and the hardware platform covers boards, data loggers and real-time machines, etc., providing a complete set of optional modules. The combination of hardware and software systems can provide test verification for the entire system under test.
Cloud platform display diagram | Source: Kunyi Electronics
Kunyi Electronics' software test solution not only realizes the full link coverage from the cloud to the device, but also realizes the full coverage from a single controller to the whole vehicle system. At the same time, the system also supports the verification and maintenance of the whole life cycle of software development.
As the automotive E&E architecture tends to be region-oriented, it is not enough to realize the data transmission and solution in the vertical spatial dimension, and different test systems are needed to match it. Therefore, Kunyi Electronics proposed a cluster test, which truly realized the horizontal pull through of the test.
In 2024, Kunyi Electronics will also launch a new version of the bus simulation analysis software - VCAR DAS to help the development of more automotive software testing and verification.
Kunyi Electronics HIL test system
With extreme performance, the pursuit of infinite possibilities
"Only with extreme performance can the possibilities be endless. ”
As the first software in China that supports CAPL scripts and automotive Ethernet communication protocols at the same time, VCAR DAS not only integrates simulation, diagnosis, database analysis and other functions, but also realizes automated testing, injecting new possibilities into intelligent connected test solutions in the automotive industry.
CAPL, Python automated testing | VCAR DAS software
With Kunyi electronic hardware system, VCAR DAS can achieve higher real-time performance - the timestamp accuracy and time synchronization accuracy can reach 1μs, and the data transmission and receiving cycle deviation can reach 50μs. The excellent performance of the VCAR DAS test system is mainly due to the following two technologies:
The first is the hardware solution independently designed by Kunyi Electronics. The advantage of this hardware solution is that it can ensure that the bus performance and number are not limited, and it has better hardware performance than the single-chip microcomputer solution and can be flexibly configured. Fault injection, such as bit interference, can be implemented with simple configuration, and all kinds of error frames can be accurately uploaded.
Source: Kunyi Electronics
The second is the self-developed real-time machine technology. The so-called "real-time machine" means that it is executed within the specified time of the test task in accordance with the set requirements to ensure the certainty of the test and the certainty and repeatability of the test results.
Source: Kunyi Electronics
Therefore, Kunyi Electronics has optimized the design of the test system at the system level - the software of the host computer is run in the Windows system, and the test project is loaded into the real-time machine system through a friendly UI interface to interact with customers, and the test is carried out with the help of the real-time performance of the real-time machine to ensure the certainty of the test results.
In the future, the field of automotive communication will use 10 Gigabit or even higher speed communication, and the Ethernet performance of the Windows system is difficult to meet the requirements of automotive software testing, while the Linux system has been fully verified and reliable in the field of traditional network servers. Kunyi Electronics believes that based on the requirements of high-bandwidth network testing and high real-time performance, Linux real-time machines will become the only way for the development of network testing. In this regard, Kunyi Electronics has made relevant technical reserves.
Embrace the new stage of multi-domain integration and create a one-stop solution for the whole domain
Looking forward to the future, automotive electronics software is moving towards a new stage of comprehensive service architecture (SOA) and multi-domain integration, Kunyi Electronics is also keeping up with the pace of the industry, in-depth insight into the development trend of automotive electronics software, and actively engaged in the development and optimization of efficient test products. Combined with the needs of global automotive electronics software development, Kunyi Electronics continues to select innovative test products to provide one-stop solutions for automotive electronics software and hardware in the loop.
On the whole, Kunyi Electronics' SOA test solution includes two major contents: vehicle end and cloud.
On the vehicle side, the host computer runs the VCAR DAS software, which can generate a simulation node, simulate the behavior of the simulation node and send and receive data, and then load the compiled program code to the real-time machine, and the real-time machine runs the program and mobilizes the board for communication. At the same time, the real-time machine uploads the test data results and related reports to the host computer, so as to reduce the software load rate running on the host computer.
In the cloud, the cloud service node is developed based on Python, and the joint testing of vehicle-cloud SOA is realized in the HIL environment.
Source: Kunyi Electronics
Kunyi Electronics' software technical solutions generally use Windows system to do relevant interface and data analysis, and the lower computer runs the test program. Combined with its own software development tools, Kunyi Electronics' SIL test solution can provide software interface definition, input and output, scaling and measurement for the needs of "software-defined vehicles", while AUTOSAR standard input and output interfaces can be graphically configured.
At present, the SIL test solution has completed the software unit test and software integration test within Kunyi Electronics, and has been applied. The prerequisite for this is that the software unit must be complete and the functions of the software integration should be complete. Next, according to the actual project and development rhythm, Kunyi Electronics will launch the tool product for SIL software testing.
Kunyi Electronics SIL test solution
At present, China's automotive software industry has far surpassed foreign car manufacturers in some fields, and it is bound to create a "Chinese business card" belonging to Chinese automobiles in the field of software tool chain. Among them, domestic manufacturers represented by Kunyi Electronics are committed to the testing and development of software and software tool chains, helping the development and verification of smart cars in the era of software-defined vehicles.