What happened is that our cars have evolved to become, essentially, complex, networked, embedded systems – big ones. An average car when I was a kid back in the ’70s had just a small number of electronic components – lights (yes, we all had those, but it seemed like a head or tail light was always burning out), a slick and fancy 8-track “audio system,” and possibly air conditioning — not much else. Electronics in these vehicles accounted for just a sliver of the purchase price of the car, and didn’t cause much of a ruckus for warranties.

Today, an average car contains more than 20 advanced electronic systems, and a high-end car can contain more than 60, representing a much larger chunk (upwards of 25%) of the sticker price. In order for the car to function properly, all of these systems need to be talking to one another. If they’re not talking, if there’s a breakdown in the network communications, it can spell trouble from a warranty perspective. Everything’s connected, from the traditional mechanical elements to the newer electrical components and sophisticated embedded systems.

Imagine the push that electronic systems have thrust upon the mechanically savvy automotive industry. This is a venerable group that had developed extensive standards and processes for design. New car models took years to come to market. Innovations were presented with great fanfare in sleek, sexy concept cars showing some ankle at automotive expos, and half of the ideas never made it to production. But once electronic systems established a foothold in automotive design, a virtual “accelerate” button was pressed. Accelerate the design process, accelerate the adoption of new technologies. Push out more models with different electronic packages to appeal to more and more different demographics. Concept cars today may include technology that will roll through the production line in the next model year.

The challenges created by this explosion of electronic systems are numerous. Automobile manufacturers are pressured to make more models, in less time, with more bells and whistles, and often with flat budgets and ad-hoc development processes. As builders of products containing complex networks of embedded systems, car manufacturers and suppliers need the same level of tool support – if not more – than the traditional embedded world. They are the industry that is newest to the challenge, and they have the largest growth.

Mentor Graphics announced last week that they are increasing their focus on automotive, driving not only to create design tools, but also fostering the adoption of standards to enable design reuse and increase system reliability for manufacturers.

On the tool front, Mentor announced their latest offering for automotive networking, which they acquired earlier this year from Volcano Communications Technology AB (VCT). The automotive industry has traditionally taken a bottom-up approach to networking, with limited time spent on front-end definition and analysis of the system. This used to make sense when the system was less populated with electronics, but if you have 60 or more subsystems in your car, as there are in many high-end vehicles today, you may find yourself in a system “traffic jam,” resulting in delays, information loss, and intermittent errors. There’s nothing more fun than driving along the road in your new BMW or Lexus and having your car go into safe mode, with a message to seek service immediately.

So what do you do? One option would be to over-engineer the network in hopes that the extra bandwidth will cover the corner cases, but your boss may not be thrilled because not only is this a costly approach (the words “over” and “engineer,” when used in combination, are considered OPEX flammable), it’s also unreliable, potentially exposing suppliers to significant warranty issues and recalls.

Mentor’s new Volcano automotive networking solution takes a top-down network design approach. The idea is that by investing more time up front in the process, analyzing the system requirements, you can avoid those ugly traffic jams and reduce your warranty exposure.

You start by entering the topology of the network into the tool. The typical network topology for a vehicle is hierarchical, with multiple sub-networks, gateways, and protocols including control area networks (CAN), high-speed CAN, low-speed CAN, local-interconnect network (LIN), etc. Next, you enter your system requirements, e.g., maximum age of each signal. At this point, Volcano Network Architect performs a worst-case analysis of communications requirements for the ECU. Network communication is done in frames, and VNA automatically packs the frames to optimize the communication matrix. Based on the requirements you entered, it guarantees that all signals can be scheduled, and the maximum age of the signal will not be exceeded. The tool then verifies that the network topology and requirements are correct, and that the network is deterministic. It calculates the utilized network bandwidth, eliminating the need to hedge your bets and overbuild for corner cases.

Volcano Network Architect also creates more possibility for reuse. You can re-run your tool to add new technology, and see what you might need to modify in order to add to the network. Or you might be doing cost reduction and you can pull out sub-systems, and optimize your network by pulling out un-needed gateways, etc.

image courtesy of Mentor Graphics

Mentor’s solution includes in-vehicle software as well as a test and validation interface that allows you to physically interconnect to the CAN and LIN network. The test and validation interface can exist by itself for prototype purposes, or can be used as a network analyzer with the Network Architect tool. In its most sophisticated form, it can be used to emulate a known good network, and talk to physical prototypes or ECUs, allowing the new part of your network to interact with legacy elements from a previous platform.

The VCT acquisition has also given Mentor a voice on the automotive standards issue. VCT, a spin-out of Volvo, was a premium member of Automotive Open Systems Architecture (AUTOSAR). AUTOSAR was formed in 2003 by major players in the global market, including BMW, Bosch, Continental, DaimlerChrysler, Volkswagen, and Siemens VDO, to create an open standard for automotive engineering architecture. Other key suppliers, including Ford, Peugeot, Toyota, and GM have since joined as Core Partners. Their goal is to make embedded software an interchangeable, reusable component in the supply chain, much like a mechanical part today.

Mentor announced last week that the company is now a premium member of AUTOSAR, and indicated that all of the work that VCT accomplished as part of AUTOSAR is continuing at Mentor, including all donations of technology.

Like the little anatomy ditty reminds us, everything’s connected. Designing your system with all of the elements in mind from the beginning, both mechanical and electrical, can save time, money, and headaches. And for an industry that loves its standards, more help is on its way.