With every new model vehicle, the features and functionality continue to increase. Increased functionality also increases the size and complexity of the embedded software. With an increase in software size, ability to modify and change the original software becomes a necessity for automotive companies. Traditionally and currently, automotive companies update software in vehicles using old-fashioned, hand-held, wired programmer. Advances in the wireless communication technologies have allowed a new approach in updating in-vehicle software. This work presents a unique proposal to manage software download using wireless communication. In addition, this work presents improvements in the in-vehicle network for efficient distribution of data required by software modules of various electronic control units (ECUs). This dissertation work also developed an efficient bootloader algorithm for programming vehicle ECUs by sharing available resources, such as memory, within the entire vehicle system. In addition, this work also examines channel characteristics of the wireless protocol, commonly known as Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC), for automotive usage such as software uploads, safety and other telematics applications.
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