Press Room

Validating and securing crucial elements of an automobile

BOSTON, MA – SEPTEMBER 16, 2021 – The Industry IoT Consortium® (IIC™) announced the IIC Automotive Over-The-Air (OTA) Updates Testbed to show manufacturers how to deploy, update, and replace software on a fleet of vehicles or devices remotely. The testbed can make updates from almost anywhere, limiting updates to what is required and authorized, and ensures the safety and security of passengers by focusing on system trustworthiness: security, safety, integrity, privacy, and resilience.

“The Automotive OTA Updates Testbed provides real-world validation for the crucial elements of an automobile, including software and security updates, car communications, after-market updates, and new services,” said Howard Kradjel, IIC Vice President, Industry Programs. “Manufacturers can also apply learnings from the Automotive OTA Updates Testbed to medical equipment, industrial machinery, and other devices.”

With the Go,Kart!, a replica of a fully functional connected vehicle, as the base platform, the testbed integrates access technologies, security, and applications and services to deliver software updates. IIC based the Automotive OTA Updates Testbed on the Open Service Gateway Initiative (OSGi), a Java framework for developing and deploying modular software programs and libraries, as the on-board gateway between a vehicle and the cloud. The testbed employs various commercially available connectivity technologies such as 5G, Wi-Fi, and Li-Fi.

“The testbed introduced Li-Fi as a complementary wireless communication option for OTA updates and general V2X communication to address RF challenges such as signal interference, jamming, and limited capacity,” said Dirar Hakeem, Co-Founder, AASA and one of the testbed leads. “The combination of wireless technologies ensures stable OTA updates, vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication, and efficient operations.”

The testbed enables manufacturers to manage the entire DevOps cycle of an automobile, from development to testing to deployment to operations, mitigating cybersecurity risks inherent in the integration of IT and OT. “The IIC Automotive OTA Updates Testbed seamlessly bridges the IT to OT gap,” said Dr. James J. Hunt, CTO of aicas and one of the IIC testbed leads. “It shows manufacturers how to produce effective and trustworthy electrified, autonomous automobiles for the future.”

For more information about the Automotive OTA Updates Testbed and a list of IIC members who contributed to it, click here.

About Industry IoT Consortium
The Industry IoT Consortium delivers transformative business value to industry, organizations, and society by accelerating the adoption of a trustworthy internet of things. The Industry IoT Consortium is a program of the Object Management Group (OMG).

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