@Toyota: Toyota Tsusho Invests in Aurora Labs Ltd. Which Offers Tools for Analyzing Software Architecture at the Line-of-Code Behavior Level

Toyota Tsusho Corporation (“Toyota Tsusho”) announces that it has participated in a B-round investment and invested approximately USD 1.5 million in Aurora Labs Ltd. (“Aurora Labs”) through the allocated third-party shares. The investment aims for commercializing services that support the analysis and management of source code for automotive software, and that support software programming of automotive device-related manufacturers. Aurora Labs, which is based in Israel, offers tools that support automotive software development.

The more multi-functions are adapted to vehicles, the more essential roles the control software plays for the automotive electronic control unit (ECU). In addition, such software tends to become larger-scaled and more complicated.

It is also crucial for the connected-cars, the market of which is expected to grow, to have higher-levelled software management and updating technology than ever before. This stems from a fact that the updating and overwriting control software is processed through the over-the-air (OTA)* system, in which the functionality to send and receive wireless communication data is managed remotely for improving marketability by adding functions after sales and for responding to defects.

Aurora Labs’ technology has moved the industry from analysing binary code to analyzing the behavior of the software architecture at the line-of-code level automatically (1) to detect faults and vulnerabilities, (2) to validate compatibility, and (3) to carry out version management (visualization of differences) with the smallest possible OTA updates.

This technology not only requires less man-hours for development of automotive control software and less amount of data needed for software updates, but allows rollbacks (reverting to the software version prior to an update) to be carried out easily, should there be faults after software updates.

Toyota Tsusho aims to commercialize Aurora Labs’ technology that supports the analysis and management of source code for automotive software as well as services for supporting OTA software programming of automotive device-related manufacturers. What is more, beyond vehicles our validation continues for applying Aurora Labs’ technology to software updates for the IT infrastructure in smart cities.

*Over-the-air (OTA):
This is a function for the remote update of software. Remote update of software is carried out through mobile phone lines, Wi-Fi communication, and other means. This allows functions of control software to be added and corrected remotely.