F2008-01-023
An Exploitation of Reconfigurable Hardware Architectures for Car-to-Car Communication Considering Automotive Requirements
Innovations and new functions in modern automobiles are to a great extend based on data exchanged with sensors and actuators, integrated into the car itself. This limitation to on-board sensors results in a very constrained perception of the environment and thus only restricted possibilities to identify oncoming dangers and obstructions. A step to a better and more efficient real time data acquisition can be done by implementing car to car communication (C2CC). The usage of sensor data and information from many vehicles in the surrounding area results in a much more effective lookahead. Many C2CC-applications are proposed ranging from driver information and traffic flow control to safety relevant functions for crash avoidance and driver assistance. To use information gained by C2CC, it is of crucial importance that the transmitted data is trustworthy. If data from off-board sensors is used, one should be able to assume a certainty in the correctness and precision of the data comparable to on-board sensors. Making decisions on potentially altered or even maliciously tampered information is a risk and can endanger the usefulness of the system as a whole. So mechanisms to secure the data and communications are of paramount importance. These mechanisms - like digital signatures - impose great computational demands on the implementing devices.
The performance requirements are tightened additionally by tasks like routing, data fusion, aggregation, congestion avoidance, and further processing coming along with C2CC. Meeting these computational demands is not a problem with today´s high performance general purpose hardware. But the task is much more difficult under automotive requirements including hard real time constraints and high demands on cost, weight, and energy efficiency. In particular issues based on special arithmetics like cryptographic algorithms are a heavy burden for embedded microcontrollers. An efficient way to tackle these demands is the utilisation of dedicated hardware implementations like system on chips, multiprocessor systems and the like, bringing in performance benefits through parallelisation and tailored processing units. In this paper we present how specialised architectures can contribute to C2CC realization and fulfill the requirements under the given constraints. Applications of similar approaches in automotive industry cooperation showed utilisability under comparable circumstances. Using digital signatures for C2CC messages as a case study, we show possibilities and benefits of a hardware-based implementation. A detailed inspection of the system and comparison to a software-based implementation envisions the advantages and potential of our architecture. We believe this will ensure quality and lead to real time availability of off-board data and therefore can accomplish a further step towards realization of C2CC networks.
"Modular system concept for a FPGA-based Automotive Gateway " O. Sander, M. Traub, M. Dreschmann, M. Hübner, J. Becker, Universität Karlsruhe M. Traub, J. Luka, T. Weber, Daimler AG, Böblingen 13. International Kongress "Elektronik im Kraftfahrzeug", VDI- Baden Baden Best Paper Award "Autoelectronic Excellence - Baden-Baden 2007"
"Dynamic and Partial FPGA Exploitation", J. Becker, M. Hübner, G. Hettich, R. Constapel, J. Eisenmann, J. Luka, Proceedings of the IEEE on Advanced Automotive Technologies, Spring 2007
"A System Architecture for Reconfigurable Trusted Platforms", B. Glas, A. Klimm, O. Sander, K.-D. Müller-Glaser, J. Becker, to be published at DATE 2008
"Novel HW/SW Design Methodologies for Ad-Hoc Sensor Networks in Future Applications" Chandra-Sekaran, A.; Sander, O.; Paulsson, K.; Hübner, M.; Becker, J.; Müller-Glaser, K.-D., CSIT Workshop 2006, Karlsruhe, Germany
"Configurable Systems-on-Chip: Challenges and Perspectives for Industry and Universities", Becker, Jürgen, International Conference on Engineering of Reconfigurable Systems and Algorithms (ERSA'02), Las Vegas (USA), CSREA Press 2002, S. 109-115.
Poster presentation: Mobility concepts