PRODUCTS & SERVICES
A DEDICATED APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT CENTRE HELPS OEMs ALONG THE ENTIRE
MACHINE DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE
40 iVTInternational.com June 2020
ABOVE: The complexity of electronic architectures for
mobile machines is increasing
BELOW: Efficiency and performance can be
maximised by development according to the V-Model
TTCONTROL
Today’s mobile machinery manufacturers
face constant technological challenges.
They have to implement increasingly complex
electronic architectures while market conditions
shift, which requires them to keep up with the
latest innovations and international standards. In
the past mobile machinery such as excavators,
tractors including agricultural implements, or
waste collection trucks were solely seen as
a simple tool to get work done. Today machines
have become smart and efficient, and are set to
become a collaborative partner for machine
operators in the near future.
OEMs are even more in need of support from
their suppliers for crucial software application
development to keep up with market needs or
even set new standards. Therefore, suppliers of
electronic solutions and systems must work closely
with their customers in a collaborative, crossfunctional
partnership. This helps create additional
value during the software development for
mobile machinery, and maximise efficiency
and performance – not only for machinery but for
the entire development process according to
the V-Model.
Hurdles to innovation
TTControl, a joint-venture company of TTTech
Group and hydraulics company Hydac
International, offers control systems, operator
interfaces and IoT solutions for mobile machinery
and off-highway vehicles. As a leader in functional
safety, its hardware and software platforms
enable equipment manufacturers to develop
highly reliable electronic control systems quickly
and economically. TTControl detects four main
challenges faced by mobile machinery OEMs that
want to meet market demands and innovate.
These are an increase in software complexity,
market pressure for time-to-market innovations,
restricted qualified personnel resources, tools and
costs, and a need for efficiency, modularity and
scalability of mobile machinery.
Software complexity
On the one hand new, more efficient and safer
machine functionalities are strongly dependent
on their software. A source of increased software
complexity is the number of written lines of code,
which can easily exceed 100,000 lines for only one
state-of-the-art aerial platform controller.
On the other hand, safety standards for
mobile machinery are constantly evolving,
highly influenced by automotive regulations.
Manufacturers of off-highway vehicles that are also
in use on roads should pay attention to integrate
common technologies, comply with certain
regulations and follow relevant trends of the
automotive industry.
For example, the first edition of ISO 26262, the
international standard for functional safety of road
vehicles, was revised in 2018 (ISO 26262:2018) to
include heavier road vehicles (weight >3.5t) such
as buses and trucks. Suppliers of electrical and/
or electronic (E/E) systems are now confronted
with higher requirements for the entire hardware
and software development. These are just
two examples of the burden on new software
development processes.
Innovation pressure
Higher software complexity goes hand-inhand
with the evolution of tools needed for
development support. Disrupting technologies
like IoT and cloud solutions, or assisted, semiautonomous
or autonomous functionalities for
mobile machinery are mainly software-driven
and require talents and competencies in the right
places. On top of that, due to the proceeding
evolution of consumer electronics and the related
improved user experience (UX) and operating
comfort, expectations of mobile machinery
operators are rising too. Even if modern consumer
devices cannot withstand the harsh operation
Full life-cycle support
V-Model of the
Application Development Life Cycle
/iVTInternational.com