Software development in the automotive industry is both complex and challenging. The increasing number of embedded software components is the key driver behind the demand for better practices and a systematic approach to software development. No matter what the application domain, automotive software engineering has challenges not found in other fields.
For example, automotive applications must contend with extremely demanding performance requirements for both computer-intensive algorithms (e.g., object detection) as well as real-time control responsiveness (e.g., collision avoidance).
In addition, automotive software must also address complex hardware-software interactions arising from a wide range of domain-specific requirements such as: telematics and infotainment systems, advanced driver assistance functions, and so on.
Finally, these applications must provide a high degree of safety and security – with the distinct possibility of life-threatening consequences in the event of a failure.
In this article, we present straightforward guidelines for software engineers responsible for automotive projects – from initial requirements all the way through deployment and maintenance.
Automotive Software Engineering: 7 Best Practices
Keeping the complexity of automotive software development in mind, here are seven best practices for automotive software engineering.
Rewrite From Scratch
Use all the resources at your disposal to avoid using legacy code and open source (if you can’t rewrite, then consider re-factoring – as long as it’s for the better).
Automate Everything
This includes unit tests, integration tests, build scripts, release management, etc. Automate as much as possible so that changes can be automatically tested and rolled out as quickly as possible.
Design for Rollback
Your design should enable the system to boot from a backup copy in case of failure, or revert to a previous version if there are issues with newer versions. This usually means thinking about how the whole application is designed to be rolled back to a previous good version – i.e., what data is stored, how it’s handled, etc.
Test Agility
As with all software development, testing should begin early and continue throughout the life-cycle. Automotive systems can perform many different functions so functional regression tests are usually needed for every significant feature or change in order to prevent regressions.
Build for Failure
As with all systems, failures will occur so it’s important to design the system in such a way that the software can continue operating even when problems occur. This means thinking about how components should behave when they fail (e.g., do they stop working entirely or do they recover by finding an alternate way to achieve their goal) and designing other system components with tolerance for failure in mind.
Minimize the Attack Surface
Minimizing the attack surface means reducing the number of entry-points where someone could potentially cause significant damage or loss of life, whether that’s an actual human or a malicious software program. This usually means minimizing network protocols/interfaces, reducing the number of features rich enough to be attractive for an attacker, etc.
Going Beyond Code
And finally … One last thought about automotive software development – it’s not just about writing the code! Software development in this space is really part of a much larger process that includes important aspects such as requirements definition and management, design, coding, unit and integration testing, and so on. The best automotive software projects will include a dedicated team of professionals with the necessary domain knowledge and technical expertise to provide end-to-end ownership of the entire software development process – from concept to deployment.
The most important thing you can take away from this list of best practices is that automotive development is not just about writing code and pushing it out – it results from a much larger process that should include requirements definition and management, design, coding, unit and integration testing, etc. The best automotive software projects will include a dedicated team of professionals with the necessary domain knowledge and technical expertise to provide end-to-end ownership of the entire software development process – from concept to deployment.
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