Technical Paper | Options for Introducing SOVD in SDV Architectures
Our Technical Paper “Options for Introducing SOVD in SDV Architectures” (Paper No. 2025-01-8081) is now available on the SAE International platform. The topic will be presented next week by Julian B. Mayer at the @WCX™ in Detroit, MI, USA.
The Technical Session will focus on:
- Introduction to SOVD as a key standard for efficient on-board diagnostics, testing and updates as well as for providing vehicle data via Wi-Fi and 5G.
- Strategies for the gradual introduction of SOVD over the entire vehicle life cycle.
- Integration of SOVD with existing UDS-based legacy systems – for a smooth migration.
- A comparison between SOVD and UDS diagnostic approaches with practical examples and an assessment and conclusion of whether SOVD can completely replace UDS in the long term.
We are looking forward to meeting you there and exchanging ideas with you!
Join our Technical Session at the WCX™ 2025, powered by SAE International®
- Live presentation by Julian Mayer
- April 8, 2025 | 10 a.m. (Room 320)
Abstract
The trend for the future mobility concepts in the automotive industry is clearly moving towards autonomous driving and IoT applications in general. Today, the first vehicle manufacturers offer semi-autonomous driving up to SAE level 4. The technical capabilities and the legal requirements are under development. The introduction of data- and computation-intensive functions is changing vehicle architectures towards zonal architectures based on high-performance computers (HPC). Availability of data-connection to the backend and the above explained topics have a major impact on how to test and update such ‘software-defined’ vehicles and entire fleets. Vehicle diagnostics will become a key element for onboard test and update operations running on HPCs, as well as for providing vehicle data to the offboard backend infrastructure via Wi-Fi and 5G at the right time. The standard for Service Oriented Vehicle Diagnostics (SOVD) supports this development. It describes a programming interface for a diagnostic system integrated in the vehicle. It's an API for all vehicle architectures capable of fully onboard testing and updating software. Nevertheless, many car manufacturers will have to define a migration path for introducing it step-by-step throughout the entire life cycle. For this reason, a combination of SOVD-capable and UDS-based legacy onboard and offboard systems will become essential.
This paper explains the ideas and the concept of the SOVD standard, shows ideas of handling legacy and the “new world” in a lean approach and illustrates them with some practical examples. In the next step, the SOVD functionality described in the standard document is compared with today’s UDS-based diagnostic approaches and the existing data processes behind them. Finally, a conclusion about whether SOVD has the potential to entirely replace UDS-based diagnostic will be presented.
