The Future of Vehicle Development Using Virtual Prototypes and an Interconnected Software Infrastructure

Today, the biggest shifts in the automotive industry do not take place in the traditional fields of vehicle or mechanical engineering anymore but are rather located in the areas of software and the respective control units. The digitalization of vehicles is particularly prominent in automated driving, V2X and over-the-air (OTA) software updates, which are now in series production. With OTA updates, the driver can access further developments as well as entirely new functions on demand at the touch of a button. At the same time, this also leads to the vehicle being unique and constantly evolving, which results in exploding costs and efforts for developers in validation and release processes. The purpose of this paper is to address how these changes impact current and future development methods and processes. It outlines how to manage the challenges and complexities: For example, with virtual prototypes, the use of continuous integration, testing and development (CI/CT/CD) throughout the entire product life cycle and massive scaling using high-performance computing (HPC) combined with the cloud technology. Furthermore, the paper illustrates how the associated infrastructure as well as work processes (e.g. provision of data, virtual prototype management, etc.) can be organized in symbiosis with agile software development and with the help of suitable software tools.