Page 35 - EE Times Europe Magazine - June 2025

EE|Times EUROPE 35

Maintaining Automotive System Safety and Security Through Automated Verification

arise with program code. Dynamic code
analysis, including evaluating worst-
case execution time, is greatly simplified
and can be more comprehensive when
processes are automated. Finally, highly
efficient processes, such as modified
condition/decision coverage, enable com-
plete coverage testing in a fraction of the
time required by traditional techniques
based on brute force.
• Stringent compliance requirements.
The most critical standards require
thorough and extensive testing, including
verification of the design tool chain and
bidirectional traceability. Tool qualification
kits and TUV certification greatly simplify
tool chain verification and eliminate the
need for OEMs to develop their own custom
verification processes. A development
Automating testing and verification enables developers to accelerate the development environment supporting bidirectional
and deployment of today’s complex automotive systems while ensuring they comply with traceability automatically builds the neces-
stringent safety and security standards. (Source: Unsplash) sary matrices to allow developers to trace
from requirements to test cases and vice
versa as required by certain standards.
a critical bottleneck to deploying both new of attention to detail, limited focus,
and updated software. Software verification and fatigue. Automating testing and BENEFITS OF AUTOMATED TESTING AND
of complex systems, however, typically takes verification processes also facilitates VERIFICATION
at least as much time, effort, and engineering comprehensive coverage testing when a Optimizing the development process through
resources to complete as the entire planning system must be run many times to exer- automation across the entire development
and development process. cise enough code to achieve compliance. cycle using an integrated development envi-
Many development teams, failing to • Extensible architecture. Automotive ronment provides multiple benefits:
acknowledge this, focus instead on optimizing vehicles comprise numerous subsystems, • Prevents many defects and vulnerabilities
individual audits and milestones rather than each with varying software complexity from being introduced to code
on improving overall software development and compliance requirements based on • Provides transparency across the develop-
and verification processes. Such short- their criticality. An efficient development ment process and among team members
sightedness often results in delayed release, environment must be extensible (i.e., • Satisfies requirements for a fully qualified
suboptimal software, and sometimes outright flexible) enough to provide and/or work tool chain
software failure. with the wide range of tools required to • Supports all major automotive standards
meet the varying needs of each subsystem. • Enables efficient on-target dynamic
Developers need to accelerate • Effective communication. Many testing
testing and verification development teams are remote and • Supports software-in-the-loop and
geographically dispersed, so an efficient
processor-in-the-loop testing and
without compromising development environment must be simulation
coverage or safety. able to aggregate relevant information • Fast return on investment (ROI), achieved
by implementing compliance verification
from across the entire team with ease.
Dependence on manual communication throughout the design cycle, leverages
What’s needed is an approach that opti- channels, including shared spreadsheets, a “left shift” advantage: The sooner an
mizes not only the system software but the can significantly stall testing and verifica- error or issue is identified, the lower the
entire development process: tion, as well as introduce time-consuming cost of addressing it
• Integrated development environment. errors. Automated production of com- By automating testing and verification,
Tools that are designed to work together pliance reports streamlines verification developers can accelerate the development and
provide efficiency by streamlining data while maintaining accuracy. deployment of today’s complex automotive
transfer between tools. For example, data • Comprehensive testing. Automated systems while ensuring compliance with strin-
that is already in the correct format for testing guarantees that every vital test gent safety and security standards. Integrating
tools higher up the tool chain results in is run and passed to ensure the software verification throughout the design cycle results
fewer intermediate steps and eliminates meets the appropriate standards for func- not only in higher software quality and greater
the need for manual intervention during tional safety and cybersecurity. system reliability but also in a faster ROI.
testing. This is often referred to as the • Advanced test and verification In this way, automotive OEMs can be
digital thread. techniques. Another benefit of auto- agile enough to deliver vehicles built on
• Automated processes. Computers are mation is the availability of advanced leading-edge technology while maintaining
designed to perform tedious, detail- techniques that may be challenging to safety, security, and reliability. ■
oriented tasks quickly and accurately. complete manually. For example, MISRA
Processes managed manually by people compliance helps developers avoid many Jay Thomas is director of field development
are prone to error because of a lack common errors and issues that can at LDRA.

www.eetimes.eu | JUNE 2025