Green Hills and Excelfore Team to Provide Safe and Secure OTA Services for Next-Gen Vehicles

By Rich Nass

Executive Vice President

Embedded Computing Design

January 31, 2022

Blog

Green Hills and Excelfore Team to Provide Safe and Secure OTA Services for Next-Gen Vehicles

Performing accurate over-the-air (OTA) software updates sounds like a simple operation — we do it every day on our consumer devices. But performing that same operation with mission-critical machinery in less-than-ideal environments is potentially very difficult.

There are many factors in play here, including ensuring that your connection is secure. It also involves possible power issues — what do you do in your mission critical system if the power shuts down? What if the wireless signal is lost mid-transfer? A simple reboot may not be possible in these applications.

To that end, Green Hills Software teamed with Excelfore to deliver its eSync-compliant OTA solution for secure and flexible OTA software delivery and data services for automotive applications. The INTEGRITY real-time operating system safely and securely runs and protects the Excelfore’s eSync OTA software client platform. The combined software platform, which runs on the latest automotive processors, lets OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers reduce the time, cost, and complexity of developing and deploying secure and flexible vehicle-to-cloud strategies for next-generation connected vehicles.

With the amount of software that’s now in modern vehicles, many auto makers and suppliers are using Cloud-based systems to handle the software upgrades and diagnostics. While that’s a great solution, it does bring in all the issues discussed here.

The eSync Server is available on Amazon AWS, Baidu, Microsoft Azure, and Google GCP, and is portable to private clouds. The INTEGRITY microkernel is pre-certified to ISO 26262 ASIL D and has adopted the ISO 21434 automotive cybersecurity standard, making it a good choice for this application.

For more information, visit Green Hills.

Richard Nass’ key responsibilities include setting the direction for all aspects of OSM’s ECD portfolio, including digital, print, and live events. Previously, Nass was the Brand Director for Design News. Prior, he led the content team for UBM’s Medical Devices Group, and all custom properties and events. Nass has been in the engineering OEM industry for more than 30 years. In prior stints, he led the Content Team at EE Times, Embedded.com, and TechOnLine. Nass holds a BSEE degree from NJIT.

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