Embedded World: Mixed-criticality software-defined automotive cockpit

At Embedded World in Nuremberg this week, the companies are showing their first result: Tata Elxsi’s eCockpit running on Green Hills’s ASIL-certified Integrity real-time operating system (RTOS) and Multivisor secure virtualisation (hall 4 stand 4-325).

“eCockpit addresses all the requirements of a full-feature vehicle cockpit, supporting infotainment, instrument cluster, HUD [head-up display] and ADAS [automated driving] on a single SoC while maintaining the highest levels of safety, security and performance,” according to Green Hills. “The demonstration safely and securely consolidates mixed-criticality applications on a single, automotive-grade Renesas R-Car H3 processor.”

Multivisor runs Linux and Android in virtualised partitions – Tata Elxsi Infotainment is based on Automotive Android and the instrument cluster runs on Linux.

V2X features are also integrated and displayed on the instrument cluster as warning messages.

Linux guest OS is partitioned using Linux ‘containers’ to accommodate sub-domains like ADAS. A separate container runs Tata Elxsi’s sensor fusion ADAS intellectual property over Tata Elxsi’s own Adaptive Autosar. Vehicle interface function is based on Tata Elxsi’s own Autosar 4.3.

The Integrity RTOS microkernel architecture is designed for critical embedded systems needing separation, security, and real-time determinism.

“Its separation architecture helps software teams to partition software running at different levels of criticality on the Renesas R-Car H3 processor while guaranteeing applications the system resources required for their proper execution,” claimed Green Hills. “This enables execution of applications running graphics and multimedia while at the same time ensuring the safe operation of critical functions, such as the tell-tale status and warning lights.”