• As the complexity of software increases in the SDV era, the need to develop hardware and software separately is increasing.
• The cloud was a means for collecting vehicle information or distributing software in the automotive environment, but it has now emerged as an integrated development environment that provides powerful resources anywhere in the world, even without a vehicle.
• BlackBerry’s QNX and AWS are providing a software development package on the public cloud. Stellantis N.V. was able to use this to build a virtual cockpit platform and introduce infotainment features and apps with a development cycle 100x faster than before.

As the automobile market moves toward Software Defined Vehicles (SDV), the environment for automotive software development is becoming increasingly important. Since the software on each vehicle model has different hardware characteristics based on their unique operating systems (OSs), it is important to test the software by directly running it on the vehicle. However, building and testing software directly on the hardware target system involves security issues and high costs. Therefore, emulating and testing the relevant software virtually can save a lot of time and resources.

Various methods are being used to determine how realistic the vehicle software emulation can be. Generally, the actual target image working in the vehicle is deployed on a virtual machine in the development environment, which is then tested while running.

QNX announced the QNX Accelerate plan in 2023, which is a cloud-based method of distributing and deploying target images using AWS. Currently, three OSs and one hypervisor are listed as Amazon Machine Image (AMI) in the AWS Market place, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. QNX products on AWS marketplace

Each of these AMIs can be launched and used as an instance with a hypervisor. It is also possible to run multiple different images simultaneously. The user connects the Eclipse-based IDE provided by QNX to the Cloud and makes developments based on these AMIs after creating an account and setting up the environment to use AWS.

Figure 1 shows BlackBerry IVY as an example of how the target image uploaded to the actual cloud and the target in the actual vehicle hardware can be tested equally. BlackBerry IVY is a cloud-based automotive software platform that can provide QNX OS, which can deploy not only targets but also images posted on AWS. The image on the left is running on AWS, and the one on the right is from an actual vehicle. This shows that development and testing are possible without an actual vehicle by using tools and environments and using the same image.

Figure 1. Parity between cloud IVY target and hardware IVY target
Source: Amazon.com

QNX currently releases software development packages using AWS so that partner companies that need immediate development can use them. There are also plans to share and update software development packages if OEMs wish to use other cloud-based development environments, such as MS Azure.

Stellantis N.V. is the leading player using software development packages. The company formed Stellantis Virtual Engineering Workbench (VEW) together with QNX and AWS and is known to have introduced infotainment technology 100x faster than before in the case of the virtual cockpit platform. Through a software-driven approach and deploying QNX hypervisor in the cloud, Stellantis N.V. was able to quickly build infotainment features and applications by replicating the experience in the cockpit and making changes based on real-time feedback.

Benefits

From QNX's perspective, software development packages are shared periodically using AWS, making it easier to perform security patches and OS upgrades on vehicle models that use the same OS. Additionally, it is expected that quality management will be easy as modern software development methods such as continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) test-driven development can be equally applied.

On the partner's side, AWS' pay-as-you-go policy may be burdensome, but it is expected to be more efficient as it reduces large upfront hardware investment costs and allows planning of usage according to the project budget. Developers can use the same development environment anytime, anywhere in the world and develop software separately from hardware with accumulated experiences in real time without a physical hardware system.

In the context of OEMs and partners, ensuring reliability and safety is important. OEMs can update vehicle information and software development environments periodically using a cloud environment. Partners are also expected to be able to follow the OEM's standardized development methods and quality management regulations. This cloud-based software development helps expedite infrastructure set up, enhance collaboration, shorten waiting times and improve software development efficiency.

Viewpoint

• This new development will trigger more cloud-based software development for the automotive ecosystem. Cars will become more like consumer electronics or computers, similar to the evolution from feature phones to smartphones.
• QNX is trying to approach developers and partners more easily through real-time updates and packages that are open to the public cloud.
• Automotive OSs have traditionally been closed. QNX is working towards an open ecosystem, similar to the PC or smartphone development environment. This is a major step towards SDVs.