ZF case study

Next Generation Mobility — developing holistic solutions to address today and tomorrow’s challenges

ZF develops digital products for various applications. The key to success for ZF is to not only deliver the broadest product and technology portfolio on the market, but ensure its offerings integrate seamlessly into its customers’ landscapes and heterogenous vehicle environments.

A vital, innovative component to ZF’s strategy is autonomous vehicles (AVs). Most AVs have numerous embedded sensors – such as radar, lidar, and cameras – managed by one gateway device with external connectivity. Leveraging sensor data, an artificial intelligence (AI) engine with additional systems communicates with traffic intersections and external infrastructure to allow an operator access to the vehicle.

Consequently, the development and ongoing management of AVs are software- dependent. AVs require frequent over-the-air (OTA) software updates to easily test and release new features and functionality across a heterogeneous set of devices – a critical function the ZF team needed to address.

Legacy automotive OTA products were evaluated, but were too limiting for the AV landscape. A closed and proprietary solution would restrict the ZF team’s visibility into the technology and ability to freely integrate existing and future applications or services. Giving a third-party proprietary vendor control of the OTA update process entailed too much business risk, especially considering potential future price increases.

The ZF team also needed to ensure AV systems stayed secure and compliant with relevant regulatory standards. Strict and granular user controls are required to manage who could use a field update service. The vehicle’s software components had to be compatible with homologation and road approvals. And the secure update process must comply with automotive standards, such as UNECE R156 and ISO 240849.

Software Update Solution Technical Requirements

		Integrate with specific operating system
		Open flexibility to support future choices
		Maintain devices uptime during update deployments
		Fail-safe design with a rollback capability
		Manage a device fleet at scale easily

In assessing OTA software update solutions, the ZF team considered core business principles. First, the ZF digital product development strategy focuses internal development talent on creating the best features for ZF product differentiation. The team leverages a best-of-breed approach for infrastructure ecosystem partners, including OTA software updates.

ZF partnered with Mender for secure and robust OTA software updates. Unhindered by legacy vendor barriers and not requiring an NDA, the ZF team quickly and easily started testing and evaluating Mender with a free trial. ZF immediately gained unmatched flexibility in the design and deployment of its OTA software updates.

Open source, flexible, and modern – the Mender RESTful API and open micro-services architecture aligned well with ZF’s modern development strategy. Using an intuitive interface, the ZF team could provision, remotely maintain, configure, and manage software updates to their devices at scale. ZF could support custom update scenarios with Mender’s custom update modules. Mender also provided off-the-shelf support for the Yocto-embedded Linux distribution with its meta layer.

Along with software update robustness, ZF achieved essential security requirements with Mender. The ZF team installed Mender in its on-premise environment for additional security and data protection. The Mender role-based access control (RBAC) feature ensured that only authorized ZF users could deploy updates or make changes to the system. Mender’s encrypted OTA channel also assured secure remote terminal access to the devices for maintenance and troubleshooting without exposing the product to attacks on the network.

	Ease of technical evaluation and deployment		Flexible, open-source solution alleviates risks of lock-in
	Built-in multi-level security simplifies compliance		Trusted leader in device lifecycle management

Accelerated innovation with robust security and safety

Accelerated time-to-market & reduced operational risks. With Mender, ZF accelerated the time-to-market for its autonomous vehicle technology. Not only did the ZF team avoid the unpredictable pricing models of legacy proprietary automotive products, they realized a reduction in operational costs from frequent updates across the fleet. Mender’s delta updates compressed the deployment software images to a fraction of their original size, minimizing cellular and satellite data transfer requirements and costs.

Retained control & achieved security compliance. ZF avoided vendor lock-in with an on-premise, private cloud open-source solution. Modern APIs also enabled broad integration flexibility, including vendor-native tools for in-vehicle-flashing. ZF retained strict control of the update process and ensured the AV update process complied with the UNECE R156 and ISO 240849 automotive standards.

Established a Best-of-Breed Partner. Partnering with Mender for secure and robust OTA software updates allowed the ZF team to focus on innovation and product differentiation – driving forward their mission to create the next generation of mobility.

Key Benefits

		Accelerated product time-to-market leveraging a purpose-built solution
		Improved quality assurance with more agile and frequent software updates
		Achieved UNECE R155/156 and ISO/SAE 21434 secure update process compliance
		Minimized bandwidth costs for deployments over cellular and satellite networks
		Retained control, avoiding vendor lock-in with on-premise, private cloud open-source solution
		Enjoyed easy integration with new and existing services, no rip-and-replace