Dialects and data pools

A vehicle manufacturer that opts for a standard description language will soon discover that most of the available standards allow room for interpretation so that they can be tailored to the user. In essence, this is to be regarded as a positive, but it also presents vehicle manufacturers with their first challenge. You see, the scope for interpretation and associated individual permutations give rise to "dialects" within the description language. Before these dialects can be processed, they first have to be translated, which in turn creates complexity and inflexibility in terms of using the diagnostic data.

The second challenge on top of data diversity is that of legacy data. Most manufacturers still have pools of legacy data based on a different standard – and in some cases, none at all – that they want to keep using. This means that the legacy and fresh data have to be combined into a uniform structure.

Translation of dialects and storage in a central database

To provide the data with a proper structure, it first has to be translated into the standard language. Drawing on our many years of experience, we are able to assist customers in this task with our highly automated tools. These combine data written in dialects with legacy data using a standardised format.

Once the data has been structured in this way, it is stored in a central database so that it remains available for further processing. Within this context, the AVL DiTEST tool chain acts as a gatekeeper for new data, analysing the database continuously.

Various interfaces are required to populate the database and make use of the data within it. Once again, this benefits all internal and external stakeholders, such as design and development, production, after-sales and workshops.

Interfaces have a crucial part to play in obtaining a structured result from the data pool and various ODX dialects. AVL DiTEST managed to implement some key interfaces on behalf of the Volkswagen Group in a very short time frame. These included:

• Data migration from requirements systems
• ReqIF output for Integrity Requirements Connector
• ODX generation
• AUTOSAR XML generation

As a result, the Volkswagen Group received an integrated solution as part of an accompanying process. As well as offering the customer its many years of practical application experience, AVL DiTEST was also able to provide expertise in ODX and software development.