Engineering and Technology
| Open Access |
DOI: Reliability and Recovery Design for OTA Software Updates in Automotive Embedded Systems
Srikanth Puram , General Motors Warren Michigan USAAbstract
Over-the-air (OTA) software updates are essential in modern software-defined vehicles, enabling continuous feature delivery, security patching, and system optimization [1], [3]. However, ensuring the reliability of OTA workflows in automotive embedded environments is challenging due to intermittent connectivity, power-state transitions, and stringent cybersecurity and safety requirements [5], [6], [10], [11]. This paper presents a reliability-focused design for OTA software update systems on Android-based automotive embedded platforms, emphasizing failure handling, recovery mechanisms, system integrity validation, and staged orchestration. The proposed architecture incorporates checkpoint-based progress tracking, modular update delivery, cryptographic verification, and deterministic recovery workflows. The design specifically addresses interruptions such as network disruptions, process restarts, and suspend-to-RAM (STR) events [3], [6], [7], [9], [12]. This framework provides a practical approach for constructing resilient OTA workflows that utilize both platform-level update support and application-layer recovery logic.
Keywords
Hybrid Cloud Security, Zero Trust Architecture, Cloud Security Evaluation, Data Protection, AI-Driven Threat Detection.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Srikanth Puram
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