Continental has announced a collaboration with Synopsys to accelerate the development and validation of software features and applications for the Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV). This new collaboration integrates Synopsys’ industry-leading virtual prototyping solutions for virtual Electronic Control Units (vECU) within Continental’s Automotive Edge (CAEdge) cloud-based development framework. The results are digital twin capabilities for software development that help automakers accelerate software development and speed up their time to market.
Gilles Mabire, CTO at Continental Automotive, said, “The Software-Defined Vehicle requires working on hardware, software, applications, and validation in parallel, all while maintaining the highest level of quality and safety. Synopsys’ virtual ECUs and vehicle digital twin capabilities enable us to develop and test advanced software solutions earlier, so they can be deployed to vehicles faster.”
The modern SDV promises drivers a cutting-edge user experience with continuously improved and enhanced software features. In order to fulfill this demand, car manufacturers and suppliers rely on comprehensive tools to simulate the performance of digital features and confirm their compatibility with existing and new car models. CAEdge provides vehicle manufacturers and their partners with a cloud-based development environment for software-intensive vehicle architectures, to develop solutions in a fraction of the time traditionally needed. Its modular hardware and software platform connects the vehicle to the cloud and features a virtual workbench to develop, supply and maintain software-intensive system functions. Within this framework, digital representations of the real-world physical devices, such as vECUs and the vehicle digital twin, facilitate the development and validation of software solutions prior to general hardware availability.
Gilles Mabire, explained, “The Software-Defined Vehicle focuses automotive development and innovation on the software that offers customers real added-value. By combining our CAEdge framework with Synopsys’ virtual ECU technologies, we are directly addressing the vehicle manufacturers’ needs to accelerate software development and automate software validation in a modern cloud-based environment.”
The Synopsys virtual prototyping tools simplify the deployment of individual vECU and vehicle digital twins by combining multiple vECUs with vehicle dynamics, sensor and environment simulations. They support the full range of vECUs abstraction (L1 through L4), mixed abstraction vehicle simulation, and come with the largest library of models developed within an automotive semiconductor and software ecosystem.
Tom De Schutter, VP of Engineering in the Systems Design Group at Synopsys, said, “The combination of CAEdge and Synopsys virtual prototyping tools marks a significant step in accelerating the deployment of the Software-Defined Vehicle. Bringing together Continental’s proven track record in design, software and manufacturing of complex automotive systems at scale with Synopsys’ proven vECU technologies, we are expanding and speeding the automotive design process from physical to virtual.”
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