Aurora Labs Announces Auto Validate for Automotive Manufacturers to Decrease Cost and Streamline Type Approval
Solution to Combat Costs and Complexities Associated with New Compliance Regulations
DETROIT: Today at TU-Automotive Detroit, Aurora Labs, the creators of Self-Healing Software to future-proof automotive software, announced Auto Validate, a Line-of-Code Maintenance™ machine learning product that provides dynamic relationship analysis showing clear evidence of the software running on the electronic control unit (ECU) and any changes made during the lifetime of the system.
Auto Validate creates software functionality relationship maps to compare software code from version-to-version. Software functionality relationship maps will help automotive manufacturers streamline the type approval process by making it easy to pin-point exact tests required, provide evidence for regulatory authorities, save time and decrease costs.
The type approval process consists of country-specific procedures and regulations for vehicle approval. In most countries, including all of Europe, China, India and Japan, automotive manufacturers must demonstrate compliance to a national regulation authority. In North America, automotive manufacturers self-regulate, however, evidence is required for when questions arise asking for detail on software bug fixes and software feature updates, proving sufficient compliance.
Auto Validate will help answer a growing requirement based on new type approval compliance regulations. The United Nations Economic Commission of Europe (UNECE), which includes members from Europe, North America and Asia, is expected to ratify new regulations, detailed in the WP.29’s report, by the end of 2019. According to WP.29, an amended type approval for a new software update is needed unless the software update is only fixing bugs or applying a security patch. WP.29 also states that if the new software functionality only affects a limited amount of installed vehicle software, the tests required to receive amended type approval will also be limited.
Auto Validate assigns a unique digital thumbprint to changes in existing functionality. This offers evidence that a specific bug-fix, or cyber-fix did not add new functionality and new type approval certification is not required. In addition, this process can be used to document which specific systems have been affected by a software update minimizing the amount of testing that is required for type approval certification when new functionality has been added to the vehicle.
“It is an undisputed fact that the amount of vehicle software will be in the hundreds of millions of lines of code,” said Zohar Fox, CEO, Aurora Labs. “The type approval process is already lengthy and expensive. With the increase in software feature updates, software-bug and cyber-security fixes and new compliance regulations, the type approval process is becoming more daunting. We look forward to partnering with automotive manufacturers to help them adapt to the new dynamics of the type approval process, liability and warranty,” he added.
