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Jul
04
2017
Jul
04
2017s

ASAM Releases a New Standard Unifying Measurement and Calibration Access to Automotive ECUs

ASAM has released a new Standard, ASAM MCD-1 POD, which standardizes the software inside automotive ECUs for Measurement & Calibration systems, making the integration of such tools from multiple vendors a much easier effort and allowing them to be quickly exchanged as needed during the ECU development process. The Standard is shipped with reference code, which can be used as a template for implementers for writing Standard-compliant code.



HOEHENKIRCHEN, GERMANY, 2017 – The standardization association ASAM e.V. is well known for its standards in the Measurement & Calibration area (MC) for the development of automotive ECUs. Almost every commercial-off-the-shelf tool on the market in the MC-area today is based on ASAM standards. However, there had been one significant gap in standardization, which is direct, high-speed ECU access via PODs (POD: plug-on device). Those hardware adapters have always been proprietary tools from specialist tool vendors, specifically developed for different access interfaces (e.g. debug ports) and microcontrollers. They require a driver in ECU software. The new Standard ASAM MCD-1 POD standardizes the interface of this driver.

 

PODs are hardware adapters, which provide direct and fast read-write access for MC-tools and debuggers to the ECU's internal resources such as RAM or Flash memory. PODs require a driver in the ECU software, called the POD Service Software (PSS), which handles the communication between the ECU software and external tool(s). ASAM MCD-1 POD standardizes major parts of the PSS, significantly easing the job of ECU basic software developers and integrators. This has the major advantage that PODs and external tools can be exchanged without major changes to the internal ECU software, or with no changes to the ECU software at all in the most ideal case ('plug-and-play'). Consequently, it becomes much easier to switch tools for ECU development and testing activities, and to ultimately achieve the freedom to select the most appropriate tools for a given task.

 

The Standard supports the technical processes of POD configuration, detection and initialization. Furthermore, the use-cases of synchronous Measurement and Calibration are supported. More use-cases might be added in future versions of the Standard. The Standard specifies an API between the PSS and the ECU software. Some API functions are fully ASAM-specified and others just contain the syntactic interface description, allowing vendor-specific implementations within the PSS. Furthermore, an A2L-file is provided for ASAM-compliant MC-tools. In parallel, the ASAM MCD-1 XCP Standard has been extended with new commands and events to configure a POD and retrieve status information. The Standard is shipped with a reference implementation for the standardized PSS functions.

 

The Standard has been created to support the development and integration of vendor-independent software drivers for the integration of PODs in ECUs. Tool vendors in the area of Measurement and Calibration systems, debuggers, data loggers and rapid control prototyping systems may decide to implement a driver according to this Standard. ECU software developers and integrators, particularly in the area of basic ECU software, as well as experts in development tools & methods at OEM- and Tier-1-companies would profit most from using the Standard. The most prominent benefit of having an ASAM-compliant PSS in the ECU is the easy integration and quick exchange of external ECU tools within the same development and testing project.

 

Major automotive companies such as Volkswagen, Robert Bosch, Continental Automotive and AVL LIST participated in the development of the Standard. Tool vendors such as Accurate Technologies, dSPACE, ETAS, Intrepid Control Systems, RA Consulting and Vector Informatik contributed their technical expertise. The Standard has undergone a public review by ASAM members in April and May this year and was released by ASAM in June 2017. The Standard is immediately available for download from ASAM's webpage free-of-charge for ASAM members or can be purchased by non-members.

 

About ASAM e.V.
 

ASAM e.V. coordinates the development of technical standards. These standards define protocols, data models, file formats and application programming interfaces (APIs) for the use in the development and testing of automotive electronic control units. A large amount of popular tools in the areas of Simulation, Measurement, Calibration and test automation are compliant to ASAM standards. Compliance shall guarantee interoperability of tools from different vendors, allow data exchange without the need for converters, and facilitate the exchange of unambiguous Specification between customers and suppliers.

 

Founded in 1998 as a German association, ASAM has today more than 200 international members, including major OEMs in Germany, France, Great Britain, US, Japan, and China. ASAM has a portfolio of 24 standards among them the well established MCD (measuring, Calibration, Diagnostics)-standards with a market distribution of up to 80% worldwide. The infrastructural standards of ASAM are used by many of the big international OEM

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