Secure software upload in an intelligent vehicle via wireless communication links

Abstract

The demand for drive-by-wire, telematics, entertainment, multimedia, pre-crash warning, highway guidance, remote diagnostic, etc. will significantly increase the complexity of a vehicle's software modules. From time to time, the vehicle's software may need to be updated due to many reasons such as the introduction of new features in vehicles, changing the navigation map, fixing software bugs, etc. Software updates must be done in secure modes to avoid any future disasters due to malfunctions of the vehicle. In this paper, we propose an architecture for secure software uploads in vehicles. We provide a detailed description of the secure software upload process.