Generic framework enabling secure and efficient automotive wireless SW updates

Abstract

Future vehicles will be wirelessly connected to nearby vehicles, to the road infrastructure and to the Internet in order to enable new comfort features, safety functions and a number of new vehicle-specific services. The latter will include a fast, secure, and reliable way to remotely diagnose and reconfigure a vehicle as well as to install new software on the electronic control units integrated in a vehicle. Such wireless software updates are beneficial for both automotive OEMs and customers, as they allow to enable new features of the vehicle remotely and to fix software bugs by installing a new software version over the air. Wireless diagnostics and software updates are required in several stages of a vehicle's lifetime: from the manufacturing stage on the assembly line and the maintenance in a workshop to the remote download of up-to-date software directly by the car owner. To support this process over a whole vehicle's lifetime, a generic framework is needed. In this paper we propose a generic framework enabling secure and efficient wireless automotive SW updates and hence supporting a vehicle's whole lifetime. We describe the IEEE 802.11s network used as wireless medium to interconnect vehicles and diagnostic devices in a reliable, trustworthy and fast way and propose a dedicated cross-layer security concept applying strong authentication as well as encryption mechanisms.