Automotive Grade Linux Has Large Presence At CES 2020

[starshipeleven]

If a device driver on a CNC machine has a bug and causes the kernel to crash, what happens?

that whatever external fail-safe is triggered and the system shuts down motors and waits for an operator to deal with the issues, like most industrial automation does.

If a device driver in your car steering system causes the kernel to crash at highway speed, what happens?

the same that would happen on unvalidated buggy firmwares, the hardware watchdog triggers and the system reboots.

The issue here is why are you running unvalidated crap in there, it's not like you are using highly complex drivers for that system

[edwaleni]

I'm not aware of any such thing happened.

Someone hacked a car (Fiat Chrysler) by getting into the infotainment system, but that's a different kind of thing. The onboard infotainment of the aircraft is on a completely independent circuit, unlike most car infotainment systems that are on CAN bus so can communicate with everything in the car.

People have successfully hacked some Chrysler vehicles and the original Toyota Prius.

As for the story of the guy who successfully (claimed) hacked the FMS on a United flight via the IFE, he only got notoriety because he bragged about it on Twitter which brought 2 federal agents to his face just after (then he bragged about that)

The FMS (flight management software) does not run on the same bus as the IFE (In Flight Entertainment) system. The only thing "shared" is that the aircraft maintenance controller that logs all the aircraft metrics during flight has a VPN channel over the satnet to ground to pass collected verbose data to the airline operations center and the power breaker switch in the flightdeck.

Some of the engine manufacturers use the ADS-B network to "ping" a health status back to the manufacturer, but these are not real time and do not use the same IFE bus.

While the guy claimed to have requested an engine thrust change via his hack, anyone who knows a modern FMS, knows that a throttle position change request is a little more involved on the software side, even in the event he really did get access.

Running Linux in a car provides a large degree of options for customization. I have seen custom dashboards at car shows that used Linux to drive the displays.

To me its just like people wanting a Linux based phone, because they can.

[DrYak]

If a device driver in your car steering system causes the kernel to crash at highway speed, what happens?

In a well designed modern car:

- If the linux kernel crashes, you'll get a black dashboard while it reboot and on some car where the task is done by the same computer, you might monentarily lose your automatic lane keeping /-assistance. And keep in mind that no current car on the regular market is above level 2 automation. The human driver is expected to whatch out and take over at any time.
Meanwhile, the numerous embbed micro-controller all over the car running some real-time OS would probably keep working as expected.

- If the rtos on one of these embed micro-controller crashes, you could perhaps lose powersteering (which isn't fatal at highway speeds). Your actuation of the steering wheel would still physically translate into steering motion of the wheel, you'll just lose the augmentation of the power-steering.
Keep in mind that there isn't a fully fly-by-wire car on the market yet. All the cars are currently designed in a fail-safe manner, and you still retain some (limited) control if the electronics dies.

Nobody in their right mind will have highly critical step entirely running on a high-level system (no drive-by-wire steering handled by the kernel that displays the dashboard and runs the infotainment). Even in the future if drive-by-wire becomes a thing, it will be handled by multiple redundant low-level dedicated micro-controller (just like in planes) and merely overwatched by the more complex computers.

The car will definitely not insta-explode in case of the Linux kernel crashing, but you could lose propulsion is case of *extensive* electronics problem.

[poncho524]

I might be resurrecting this old thread...
but can anyone give an argument or justification for AGL and why it exists??

[edwaleni]

I might be resurrecting this old thread...
but can anyone give an argument or justification for AGL and why it exists??

Some manufacturers are beholden to their suppliers to create and develop in car electronics. This also means they are beholden to their ability to patch, update and correct any issues that may be revealed.

Toyota used AGL to create their Entune in car entertainment system because at the time Apple refused to provide data on weaknesses or any audit data on successful ethical hacks. Since Apple was unwilling to provide any kind of liability support to compensate for any future hacks, Toyota went their own way. Apple finally relented and Toyota now offers Car Play.

If you go to the SEMA car show in LA every year, you will see that many of the customizers are using AGL to create custom dashboard displays, some of them pretty doggone extravagant. At CES Mazda & Hyundai showed how they were using AGL to create semi-custom displays for the speedo and tach.

As for internal mechanical controls, some examples have been shown where AGL can be used as a sort of controller for various mechanical features, But I am not aware of anyone personally using Linux to control auto-pilots, steering controls or gas pedals.

[poncho524]

Some manufacturers are beholden to their suppliers to create and develop in car electronics. This also means they are beholden to their ability to patch, update and correct any issues that may be revealed.

Toyota used AGL to create their Entune in car entertainment system because at the time Apple refused to provide data on weaknesses or any audit data on successful ethical hacks. Since Apple was unwilling to provide any kind of liability support to compensate for any future hacks, Toyota went their own way. Apple finally relented and Toyota now offers Car Play.

If you go to the SEMA car show in LA every year, you will see that many of the customizers are using AGL to create custom dashboard displays, some of them pretty doggone extravagant. At CES Mazda & Hyundai showed how they were using AGL to create semi-custom displays for the speedo and tach.

As for internal mechanical controls, some examples have been shown where AGL can be used as a sort of controller for various mechanical features, But I am not aware of anyone personally using Linux to control auto-pilots, steering controls or gas pedals.

Thanks, edwaleni.

Buy why use AGL over just linux? what value-add does AGL offer?

I work with embedded linux, and have used things like Yocto and Buildroot. When i look at what AGL is, i can't see what the draw is. And i'm wondering if i'm missing something. As far as i can tell it binds you to use QML or HTML5 for your GUI.