Sibros Safe Launch: Safe Approach to Delivering Vehicle Over The Air Software Updates

In this post, we will briefly discuss the guidelines of Sibros Safe Launch, ensuring a Safe Launch of new software delivered to customer vehicles. Sibros Safe Launch is designed to ensure the new software achieves the intended outcome, does not have any unintended consequences and is delivered to the entire targeted population with a first time success rate and with a predictable delivery schedule. 

The Safe Launch process involves five steps:

1. Test Bench Validation
2. Test Vehicle Validation
3. Company Owned Fleet
4. Limited Exposure Fleet
5. Full Fleet Deployment at scale

With the Sibros Safe Launch, you will have the full confidence of rapidly deploying new software to millions of vehicles in every geographic region.  

Step #1: Bench Validation

Bench Validation is an automated set of tests used to verify the repeatability of software delivery to the targeted ECU. The intention of this test is to ensure the targeted ECUs can accept updates under a variety of conditions. During bench level testing, external variations are introduced, such as full power removal with full automated recovery once power is restored to ensure the robustness of the delivery system.

Completion of this test phase can be done in a few days. If failure occurs, a full root cause analysis is performed and permanent corrective action is implemented before moving forward. 

Step #2: Test Vehicle Validation

The next stage of testing is an end-to-end test of the process in Engineering Development Vehicles. Validation testing at this stage will include customer interaction to simulate customer consent. If a failure occurs during this stage, a full root cause analysis will be performed and corrective action will be applied. However, if the rate of occurrence and customer impact is minimal, the Over the Air (OTA) Delivery Team may move forward. An overall success rate of 95% or higher is achieved during this stage. The most common causes for failures are externalities like the wireless network or interactions with the Infotainment System or Mobile App. These types of failures are reduced significantly as the maturity of the entire ecosystem evolves.  

Step #3: Deployment to Company Owned Vehicles

The third step is to push software updates to company owned vehicles driven by company drivers. Company drivers are required to report any issues that occur during or after new software has been updated in their vehicles. While the Sibros Deep Updater will provide a detailed report on problems that may occur, drivers have the unique perspective to report any issues after the download completes and the vehicle is driven for a few days.   

Safe Launch will only advance to the next stage if there are no critical issues associated with the new software package, and no failures for which a root cause cannot be determined. This stage should be done over a 1-2 week period to allow for drivers to drive vehicles after the download and provide feedback.  ‍

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Step #4: Limited Production Deployment 

This is the final confirmation step before deploying the software update to the entire fleet of vehicles. This group is a fleet of employee privately owned vehicles and hand raisers in the local market. During this stage, the end-to-end performance is fully characterized including wireless connectivity issues (vacation, lack of use, service) and customers not consenting to an update.

Following a software deployment, vehicles should be monitored through the warranty system and connected vehicle data logging. Through the monitoring systems, OEMs will determine if the downloaded software delivered the expected results and if there were any unintended consequences.  

Step #5: Full Fleet

Following the Safe Launch process the OTA Delivery Team will be able to deploy software updates to the full fleet of customer vehicles with confidence and have the tools necessary to accurately predict the completion schedules for every OTA campaign. First time success rate based on connectivity and customer behavior will be consistent with the measured rates during stage #4 of the deployment. 

Sibros is the industry leader in helping OEMs securely and efficiently deliver software updates to their entire fleet. The Sibros solution stands alone when it comes to managing the intricacy of total vehicle software updates and the challenges of vehicle software configuration management.