Forbes Innovation Transportation RemotiveLabs Launches Virtual Cure To Speed Software Development Ed Garsten Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Following Sep 7, 2023, 02:00am EDT | Press play to listen to this article! Got it! Share to
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Twitter Share to Linkedin Volvo Cars is an early adopter of the RemotiveLabs software development platform. Volvo Cars They've got the process backwards and it's slowing down development of today's software-defined vehicles. That's what leaders at Swedish tech company RemotiveLabs are saying about the way automakers work and it's what sparked Thursday's official launch of the RemotiveCloud. “Software is fast. Hardware is not as fast. So you want to stay away from hardware as long as you can,” said Aleksandar Filipov, founder and CTO at RemotiveLabs in an interview. Graphic showing continuum from RemotiveBroker to RemotiveCloud to the goal of complete virtual ... [+] vehicle development. RemotiveLabs To accomplish that the company has launched RemotiveCloud. An extension of RemotiveBroker, the core of its software development platform, RemotiveCloud provides the environment for a vehicle's entire software and electronics systems to be created collaboratively in, yes, the cloud, ahead of creation of hardware. RemotiveLabs Founder and CTO Aleksandar Filipov (L) and Co-Founder and CEO Per Sigurdson (R). RemotiveLabs “It's about providing an environment where you actually can test things at an early stage and not find out things that are not working according to spec at the late stage and then that is a lot about virtualization and removing hardware in earlier stages and get it right,” said RemotiveLabs Co-Founder and CEO Per Sigurdson in an interview. MORE FOR YOU
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Apple Suddenly Unveils Video Countdown iPhone 15 iPhone 15 Pro Release Problems Hit Apple s New iPhones New iPhone 15 Exclusive Exposes Surprise Apple Design Decision “Because being software-centric to us it means being able to do things fast and iterate fast and and try on things not doing the traditional waterfall thing and ordering older hardware five years in advance and then slowly working towards the end getting deliveries from others,” added Filipov. RemotiveLabs graphic showing typical use case of RemotiveCloud play-back the company says simplifies ... [+] collaboration internally and externally and enables signal transformation in a completely virtualized environment. Available plug-ins and integrations on RemotiveLabs GitHub. RemotiveLabs How fast? Sigurdson says clients have told him that using Remotive's tools, software prototyping is about four to five times faster than using traditional tooling. Volvo Cars has been working with RemotiveLabs for about three years. Volvo Cars RemotiveLabs has what Sigurdson calls “three paying customers,” including Volvo Cars, which began working with the company three years ago and will make use of RemotiveCloud. Henrik Svensson,Director Platform Software Services, Volvo Cars. Volvo Cars The automaker has been using current RemotiveLab tools to test its electronic control units-ECUs, and software, along with prototyping of new ECUs, but sees future opportunities to use RemotiveCloud to virtualize its on-board systems, according to Henrik Svensson,Director Platform Software Services, Volvo Cars. “Future software needs automotive skills, together with skills from software developers and software professionals from other industries,” said Svensson in emailed replies to our questions. “The tooling has to follow this need of building more complex software at scale in a flexible way, where the focus is on the skills and code rather than the need for being expert on the tools. The tools need to be simple and intuitive for software engineers, though powerful enough to solve the problems at hand.” A key concept surrounding the ability to create a so-called “virtual twin” of a vehicle in the cloud is giving automakers more ownership of software development rather than outsourcing it, said Filipov. “OEMs own very little of the software developed into vehicles, which means that they have very little control of changing things in a swift or a fast manner,” said Filipov. “If you own things, then you can take responsibility for it. You can update the software. You can add new features, functionality.” It brings us back to the goal of being able to collaborate in the cloud ahead of waiting for physical models or hardware to be created before adequate software testing and analysis. Scott Goodson, Director for
Android Automotive Operating System-AAOS- at
Google Google It's a point not lost on Scott Goodson, Director for Android Automotive Operating System at Google who noted in emailed remarks, “Teams from different backgrounds can more efficiently contribute to car development with the RemotiveLabs platform. The new abstractions it creates can lessen dependence on limited-availability vehicle hardware, and enables access to data from issue reports that can be invaluable to engineers. This simplifies both prototyping and debugging stages for modern vehicles utilizing Android Automotive Operating System.” Aside from Volvo Cars, other automakers the company isn't yet ready to reveal, are at least giving the RemotiveLabs platform a test drive with proofs-of-concept in progress “from the West Coast to the East Coast to
China and Asia and Europe,” said Sigurdson. Filipov asserts, putting their heads in the cloud is simply imperative for automakers in order to keep up with the pace of change, noting, “that's their only way to be able to be agile, add functionality quickly. Yeah, I mean, the OEMs don't have any other options.” Follow me on Twitter . Ed Garsten Editorial Standards Print Reprints & Permissions