Dresden, February 8th, 2023 – Since 2017, Elektrobit has been working together with Kernkonzept to develop a scalable automotive virtualization solution. We achieved our goal in building a solid foundation that meets all upcoming requirements in the rapidly changing automotive market.
This partnership brings together Elektrobit’s experience in automotive-grade embedded software and Kernkonzept’s expert knowledge in secure and modular operating systems and virtualization. The open-source L4Re Hypervisor developed by Kernkonzept is approved in renowned high-assurance gateway products and accredited up to NATO SECRET.
The result of this combined power is the rock-solid foundation for the in-car application server ICAS 1 – Continental’s high-performance computer (HPC) ECU system. Here, the EB corbos Hypervisor provides the first HPC virtualization solution, enabling the consolidation of a multitude of functions. Since 2017, it has been running successfully in the body/chassis domain of many electric vehicles.
L4Re and the EB corbos Hypervisor are being constantly refined to provide a safe and secure virtualization and operating system solution for automotive. They are working intensely on obtaining safety and related certifications for upcoming automotive E/E architectures.
With their trusted partner Kernkonzept, Elektrobit provides a powerful hypervisor solution for the safety and security challenges the software defined vehicle (SDV) faces. Together, they offer long-term maintenance, including analysis of potential security/safety breaches.
The L4Re-based EB corbos Hypervisor provides the same advantages as the L4Re Operating System Framework itself: state-of-the-art security architecture, capability-based access control, flexibility along all common ECU-architectures and platforms, as well as a flexible software architecture allowing for static and dynamic systems – and thus opening the way to cloud services.
“Today, we are very happy about our decision to opt for an open-source system back in 2017. L4Re’s characteristics allow for dynamic setups, enabling our automotive services to step into the cloud and play in both worlds. The open-source nature put together with EB’s approach to evolve EB corbos Hypervisor into an automotive grade product enables OEM’s and Tier1’s to apply a rapid prototyping or software-first approach and still have a clear path to start of production ready”, states Dr.-Ing. Kai Lampka, Chief Expert and Technology Manager for platform virtualization, EB corbos Hypervisor, Elektrobit.
The ability to use a uniform secure software architecture both in the car and in the cloud accelerates the development of the software-defined vehicle, in software development as well as in-car services.
“We are honored to work and collaborate with Elektrobit as a strong partner. For over 5 years we have been providing safety and security operating system solutions for the automotive market, based on L4Re. We are proud to have built the safe and secure hypervisor technology for ICAS1, the first generation automotive HPC systems, together with Elektrobit. Now we are looking forward to broader the technology’s application to the software defined car and the cloud”, Dr.-Ing. Adam Lackorzynski, CTO of Kernkonzept.
Both companies look forward to working together with customers on the next generation of HPC and enabling even more cases for consolidation, paving the way to the next level of automotive E/E architectures and reaching a zonal structure.
Elektrobit is an award-winning and visionary global vendor of embedded and connected software products and services for the automotive industry. A leader in automotive software with over 35 years of serving the industry, Elektrobit’s software powers over five billion devices in more than 600 million vehicles and offers flexible, innovative solutions for car infrastructure software, connectivity & security, automated driving and related tools, and user experience. Elektrobit is a wholly-owned, independently-operated subsidiary of Continental.
