According to the national standard public service platform, the national mandatory standard “General Technical requirements for Automotive Software upgrade” was officially released on August 23, 2024, with the official number: GB 44496-2024, put forward by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the people’s Republic of China and entrusted to TC114SC34 (National Automotive Standardization Technical Committee Intelligent Network Automotive Branch), which will be formally implemented on January 1, 2026.
According to the relevant provisions of the standard implementation regulations, from January 1, 2026, all newly listed models must meet this standard, and from January 1, 2028, all stock models must also meet this standard.
Car sales OEM, are you ready? As the drafting unit of “General Technical requirements for Automotive Software upgrade” and the corresponding operation guide, Ellabee interprets the national standard issued this time from the background and content requirements of the national standard according to the contents of the national standard.
Hope to help automobile production enterprises and suppliers understand the strong standard content, and on this basis to explore countermeasures.
First, the release background of “General Technical requirements for Automotive Software upgrade”.
With the development of automobile intelligence and digitalization, software has become an indispensable part of modern automobiles.
Software upgrade plays a vital role in improving vehicle performance and user experience.
According to the OTA dynamic statistics released by the major main engine factories, only in the first half of 2024, 174brands push 290 versions, covering 350 + models.
Compared with last year, the frequency of OTA upgrades has significantly increased, and the upgrading content has evolved in depth, from entertainment information systems to power systems, and then to self-driving functions, reflecting the accelerated layout of car companies in intelligent competitions.
In the face of the demand of frequent updates of automotive software, in order to ensure the safety and stability of vehicles and the functional consistency with the announced models, the release and implementation of the national standard “General Technical requirements for Automotive Software upgrade” is particularly important.
The release of the standard “General Technical requirements for Automotive Software upgrade” is to ensure that in the process of software upgrade, it can not only improve the function and performance of the car, but also minimize the risk caused by the upgrade.
This standard is formulated according to the United Nations regulation UNECE R156, which provides clear technical requirements for the software upgrade of China’s automobile industry, and aims to improve the safety and reliability of vehicle software upgrade, and at the same time, in line with international standards, promote the internationalization of China’s automobile industry.
At present, with the increase of China’s automobile export volume, especially in the process of connecting with the international market, automobile manufacturers are facing higher and higher standards and requirements.
The implementation of this standard is to make up for this demand gap, establish a regulatory system corresponding to international standards, and ensure the competitiveness of China’s automobiles in the global market.
Interpretation of the content of “General Technical requirements for Automotive Software upgrade”, Standard name: general Technical requirements for Automotive Software upgrade, Standard Nature: mandatory National Standard (GB), release date: 2024-08-23, implementation date: 2026-01-01 (newly listed models), implementation date: 2028-01-01 (stock models), scope of application: applicable to M, N, O cars Main content: automobile software upgrade management system requirements, vehicle requirements, test methods, vehicle type change and expansion, software identification code, OTA special requirements, ● management system requirements: standardize the management system of automobile software upgrade Ensure that the whole process from planning, implementation to monitoring is up to standard.
Clear requirements are put forward for the process of software upgrade, information recording, security, and OTA.
● vehicle requirements: clarify the specific requirements of the software upgrade for the vehicle, including security and functional maintenance during the upgrade process.
● test method: stipulate the test items and test verification methods of OEM in forced inspection and certification.
● vehicle type change and expansion: specify the handling of vehicle type change, as well as the requirements of software upgrade for vehicle configuration and function expansion.
● software identification code: establish a software identification code system to track and manage software versions and their changes ● OTA special requirements: special requirements for remote upgrade (OTA), including user notification, user confirmation, prerequisites, power guarantee, etc.
Third, discussion on the countermeasures of OEM.
The draft of the national strong standard “General Technical requirements for Automotive Software upgrade” was first released on June 17, 2022.
Ellabee, as a domestic independent OTA innovation enterprise, combined with many years of technical precipitation and practical experience, participated in the drafting of this standard from many aspects such as OTA upgrade process and management.
In recent years, in the process of cooperation with customers, we have implemented OTA system construction, compliance transformation and OTA filing auxiliary system construction for a number of automobile manufacturers to help customers complete GDPR, R155 and R156 certification.
Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice on further strengthening the management of intelligent network car access, recall and software online upgrade (draft for soliciting opinions), combined with the release of this national standard, for mainframe factories, it is urgent to strengthen the systematic construction of their own software.
Specifically, in order to build a software upgrade system in line with this strong standard, OEM needs to strengthen the construction of its own software system and establish and improve the whole life cycle management system of vehicles and software.
, ● 1.
To speed up the integration of software upgrade management system, OEM enterprises should establish and improve software upgrade management system, especially the widely used OTA upgrade system to ensure compliance with all the requirements of national standards.
This includes the standardization of OTA, USB disk, OBD and other upgrade processes, the standardization of document management and the security of upgrade processes, in order to improve the overall upgrade efficiency and quality.
For how to establish a software upgrade management system, OEM can focus on the following aspects: 1) basic management: establishing norms at the organizational level, project level, infrastructure level, vehicle and vehicle system level, upgrade package level, upgrade activity level, and software identification code level.
, 2) process management: process management is required for SWIN unique / SWIN update / soft upgrade target relevance / upgrade target identification / upgrade object compatibility with other ECU / approval of software version / whether new features are enabled / user notification, etc.
3) Information recording: the process of software upgrade should be recorded and it should be proved to comply with the General Technical requirements of Software upgrade and enterprise specifications.
The audit record of the software identification code, the record of identifying the configuration compatibility of the target vehicle, the purpose, time, function and prerequisites of the upgrade, the evaluation that does not affect formal certification, the evaluation that does not affect safety, etc.
, should be recorded.
These records should be required to be kept at least 10 years after the model is out of production.
, 4) Safety guarantee: there should be a security machine.
System, including: how to protect the upgrade package and the upgrade process of car cloud link and in-car transmission, how to verify the software before and after the upgrade, and the emergency guarantee mechanism of enterprise software upgrade.
, 5) Special treatment of OTA: if a software upgrade is carried out while the vehicle is running, it should be proved that this will not affect driving safety.
The conventional way of handling is to upgrade the vehicle when it is not driving.
In addition, only upgrades that do not require complex user operations are carried out through OTA, and upgrades that require parameter adjustments should be implemented by professionals.
, ● 2.
According to the requirements of the new standard, OEM needs to revise and improve the relevant enterprise management documents, including software upgrade strategy, software package management specification, software identification code specification, OTA specification, information security specification, OTA upgrade record and risk assessment report, etc.
These documents should not only meet the requirements of the standard, but also meet the needs of the actual operation of the enterprise.
Taking the software identification code specification as an example, we should stipulate the rules for the generation and update of the software identification code, establish a corresponding relationship between the formal approval and the ECU, clearly record the hardware number, software version and software package hash value corresponding to each software identification code, and stipulate the responsibilities of different departments when judging whether the software identification code should be updated.
, ● 3.
To comprehensively record and record the upgrade information, OEM should establish a comprehensive upgrade information recording system to record each software upgrade in detail, including upgrade content, implementation time, result verification and so on.
This is not only helpful to internal management, but also provides a basis for follow-up audit and compliance inspection.
The maturity and richness of OTA system functions will help to improve the accuracy and efficiency of filing.
Take Alabi’s OTA system as an example, it is convenient to use API or export function to convert the target vehicle, upgrade purpose, impact assessment on safety / environmental protection / energy saving, upgrade ECU list, user notification, upgrade time, upgrade result, etc.
into the information needed for the filing of OTA activities.
For OEM customers with a large number of models and high frequency of upgrade activities, this will greatly save labor costs.
, ● 4.
To improve the software development test verification process, in the software development and testing stage, OEM needs to strengthen the verification process of software upgrade to ensure that each upgrade will not introduce new problems or loopholes.
Adequate user notification testing, power assurance testing, functional testing, compatibility testing, and security testing must be carried out to ensure the success, safety, and compliance of software upgrades.
, ● 5.
To ensure that users understand the upgrade information, OEM should provide users with upgrade information in a timely manner through clear communication channels, including the purpose, content, possible impact and measures to be taken by users.
Especially under the OTA system, the task description and expected upgrade time can be set in the OTA system, and the user can be informed of the purpose of the upgrade, the function change, the expected upgrade time, etc.
, in the APP of the car and mobile phone, and the user can be authorized to upgrade the task.
the OTA system can also save the records of the corresponding authorization.
and show the results and functional changes to the user after the OTA upgrade.
On the one hand, these information sharing with users is to meet the requirements of the national standard for software upgrade, on the other hand, it also helps to improve users’ understanding and compatibility of software upgrade.
, ● 6.
Speed up the design of upgrade security strategy, and formulate a comprehensive upgrade security strategy, covering data encryption, authentication, integrity check, security update and so on.
Ensure the security of data transmission and the reliability of software updates during remote upgrade (OTA) to prevent potential network attacks or data leakage.
In addition, the emergency mechanism of software upgrade should be established to agree on the remedial measures that should be taken by the corresponding departments and systems when there are similar problems such as batch failure of software upgrade, information security and so on.
For example, we provide customers with OTA system with grayscale release function, according to the number of upgrade failures, failure ratio can be automatically broken, through these measures to avoid a large number of vehicle failures.
Alabi also provides customers with ABO X-ray diagnostic equipment, so that after-sales staff can quickly and easily repair the failure of OTA upgrade.
Conclusion, the release of “General Technical requirements for Automotive Software upgrade” marks an important step in the field of automotive software management and safety in China.
OEM enterprises need to keep up with the standard requirements, comprehensively improve the management and implementation level of software upgrade, establish an OTA-based software upgrade management system, vehicle specifications, and conscientiously implement the requirements of OTA filing notice.
At the same time, Alaby will also provide customers with complete system construction solutions based on enterprise-level requirements, project-level requirements and vehicle product requirements, such as automotive software lifecycle management, automotive intelligent diagnosis programs, domestic and foreign OTA compliance programs and OTA compliance testing, operation and other programs and services Help the mainframe factory to cope with the challenges brought by automotive software upgrade, safety and compliance.
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