The University of Luxembourg and Honda R&D Europe have decided to work together to investigate and develop new efficient and secure in-vehicle communication technology. The three-year research project SETICA (SEcuring TIme Critical traffic in (next gen) Automotive networks) is funded by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) under the FNR-BRIDGES funding programme.
Towards autonomous vehicles
Today’s vehicles incorporate more and more enhanced services such as Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS), smartphone integration, autonomous driving, connectivity, and entertainment for passengers. These services require a large number of sensors that have to exchange information via the in-vehicle network. “Efficient and reliable network communication inside vehicles is the key to facilitate all these services. So far, in-vehicle communication systems, such as Controller Area Network (CAN) and Local Interconnect Network (LIN), have been designed to allow for very stringent end-to-end delays and deterministic communication requirements. However, they do not provide the bandwidth needs of future vehicles, and offer little security”, explains Ion Turcanu, research associate within the Security and Networking Lab (SECAN-Lab) at the University of Luxembourg.
“Honda’s commitment to ensure the safety for everyone (drivers, passengers, and pedestrians alike) covers all domains of the driving experience. This includes also more and more connected systems inside the car, that might fall vulnerable to external attackers. Therefore, securing these systems is a crucial aspect to ensure the functionality of future key-areas of customer-driven mobility, such as ubiquitously-connected, smartphone-like, autonomous driving vehicles.”, states Florian Jomrich, Project Engineer at Honda R&D Europe.
Power of Ethernet
Contrary to conventional in-vehicle communication systems, such CAN and LIN, Ethernet offers much higher bandwidth. Moreover, being a widespread and well-established technology in traditional computer networks, many associated networking protocols can be adapted to the automotive domain. On the one hand, as a set of different standards for transmitting data in Ethernet networks, Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) can guarantee tight end-to-end delays. On the other hand, Media Access Control security (MACsec) can provide security on Ethernet links.
“The amount and complexity of data transported within vehicles is constantly growing. At some point, the mere availability of bandwidth provided by Automotive Ethernet is not sufficient anymore. The need for highly reliable data provision and at the same time fine-grained prioritisation of data traffic in future vehicles requires powerful control tools like TSN. At the same time, we need to make sure that security controls to protect high-value data assets are seamlessly integrated and do not become a technical bottleneck. SETICA will treat some key questions in this field of research”, adds Christian Köbel, Senior Project Engineer at Honda R&D Europe.
The goal of SETICA is combining TSN with MACsec and adapting these protocols to the automotive domain, which is of the essence for future vehicles in terms of safety and security as well as comfort. This requires answering challenging research questions and thorough evaluation. The importance of this research has been acknowledged by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) which is working on the elaboration of a new standard called “TSN Profile for Automotive In-Vehicle Ethernet Communications (802.1DG)”. SETICA plans to contribute to the security aspects of these standardisation efforts. The project will also develop a realistic security-enabled TSN testbed, which, in turn, will allow thorough realistic evaluation.
Time is key
TSN requires accurate time synchronisation to guarantee tight end-to-end delays. “We plan to especially focus on Generalised Precision Time Protocol (gPTP), the timing protocol of TSN. The impact of successful attacks against gPTP is severe because many safety-critical applications depend on timing guarantees”, explains Daniel Kaiser, research associate within SECAN-Lab. “We will also research novel approaches that go beyond 802.1DG, leveraging software-defined networking for gaining even more flexibility and security”, continues Ion Turcanu.
“SETICA will generate significant value, researching and developing important future technology to be used as key communication technology in vehicles”, comments Prof. Thomas Engel, Head of the SECAN-lab at the University of Luxembourg.