UP2DATE4SDV

The European research project UP2DATE4SDV (ENABLING SAFE & SECURE MODULAR UPDATES, UPGRADES AND DYNAMIC TASK REALLOCATION AND EXECUTION FOR SOFTWARE DEFINED VEHICLE), which started on 1 July 2025, aims to develop a comprehensive ecosystem for seamless and efficient software updates, hardware upgrades and situation-dependent reconfigurations of software-defined CCAM vehicles (SD-CCAM-V). To this end, the project focuses on the definition and development of two abstraction layers - the hardware abstraction layer (HAL) and the OS/MW abstraction layer (OAL) for the operating system (OS) and middleware (MW) - as well as on the exploration and prototyping of a secure orchestration and reconfiguration layer (ORP) between the vehicle and the cloud. This will improve the reliability and performance of the CCAM system, extend vehicle life and reduce electronic waste. In addition, the project's new modularity concepts will accelerate the transition to safer, more sustainable automated driving and enable incremental steps towards Level 4 automation and longer vehicle lifecycles.

The project is coordinated by DLR and brings together automotive hardware and software manufacturers, small and medium-sized enterprises and research institutions. They are working together to develop a comprehensive ecosystem for software-defined, networked and automated vehicles that can be continuously updated, upgraded and reconfigured. The aim is to create a solution that is integrated into the existing open-source standards of the automotive industry and enables complete abstraction of both the software running in the vehicle and the installed hardware. In this way, software functions can be continuously updated and safely kept up to date throughout the life of the vehicle, while hardware components can be easily replaced or upgraded to meet future requirements. To achieve this, a new hardware component is developed on the basis of established automotive systems and extended in such a way that the unavoidable overhead caused by the update capability is minimised through targeted hardware support.

The overall solution is specifically designed for the upcoming zonal and centralised E/E architectures, which are dependent on a permanent cloud connection. One focus is therefore on the development and integration of methods that guarantee system security during ongoing updates. To this end, all automotive applications are strictly separated from each other in containers and protected by an additional security layer that prevents potential attacks via the cloud or between the modules.