Vehicle diagnostics for the entire vehicle lifecycle: Cloud-based diagnostic services

In their article, "Cloud-Based Diagnostic Services," Guido Rulhof and Rhys Evans explain the four essential components of troubleshooting and fault diagnosis and how they interlink to form a proactive process.

Data-driven diagnostic infrastructure

A crucial prerequisite is the Over-The-Air (OTA) capability of vehicles. This allows for the remote reading of diagnostic data and the remote correction of faults. In addition, software-defined vehicles require a software-centric diagnostic interface. With SOVD, this is now available. This turns troubleshooting into a proactive process with a data-driven diagnostic infrastructure that links four essential components.

• Modular, SOVD-capable, and cloud-based diagnostic tool: ETAS Cloud-Hosted Diagnostics Solution is a modular, SOVD-capable, cloud-based diagnostic tool that can access current diagnostic data and sequences managed in the cloud directly as a client-side software application. The system's central backbone architecture enables OEMs to seamlessly integrate existing solutions and adapt the tool to their specific business models.

• Intuitive authoring solution: The efficiency and quality of future vehicle diagnostics depend heavily on intuitive authoring solutions. These solutions allow users to create complex diagnostic procedures without in-depth software engineering knowledge. Such a data-driven solution is implemented through an integrated development environment (IDE), in which diagnostic experts from the OEM, supplier, or service provider can flexibly configure routines.

• Cloud-based simulation and validation: A cloud-based diagnostic simulation platform is essential for developing and validating dynamic diagnostic solutions for SDVs. This allows diagnostic applications to be executed without hardware in a virtual environment, eliminating the need for physical vehicles or HiL systems. The result is a significant reduction in development time and costs, as well as an improvement in the quality of diagnostic software through early, comprehensive testing.

• Cloud-based vehicle health monitoring: The ETAS Vehicle Analytics and Intelligence Solution enables proactive, holistic monitoring of vehicle fleets. The solution uses machine learning and knowledge graphs to identify complex patterns and correlations in operational, diagnostic, and software log data from vehicles. Thus, it can provide technicians with precise fault diagnoses and concrete, data-driven recommendations. The insights gained through cloud-based vehicle health also form the basis for predictive maintenance: Potential failures are identified in advance and ideally resolved via FOTA updates.

Future-proof solution for the SDV

Diagnosing software-defined vehicles (SDVs) requires a fundamental reorientation because reactive fault analysis of complex, networked systems is no longer sufficient. The future lies in proactive, data-driven diagnostic services throughout the entire vehicle lifecycle. This integrated approach combines the agile creation of diagnostic content with cloud-based simulation and flexible on-site execution. Along with intelligent vehicle health monitoring, which enables predictive maintenance, this allows OEMs and fleet operators to efficiently troubleshoot, maximize vehicle availability, and enhance customer satisfaction.