Skip to main content
4.3 Million Vehicles, One Race Condition: What the Ford ITRM Recall Teaches Us About Cross-Layer DebuggingRead
Vehicle System Intelligence

Trace Failures Across the Full Vehicle Software Stack

AI that reconstructs vehicle behavior across CAN bus, ECUs, VHAL, and Android layers. Upload a bugreport and a CAN trace, ask what happened, get root cause in minutes.

Get Started

Why Vehicle Software Debugging Is Hard

Failures cross invisible boundaries between vehicle hardware, ECU firmware, VHAL, and the Android stack — no single tool sees the full chain

Invisible Boundaries Between Layers

A CAN bus signal crosses ECU boundaries, passes through vehicle HAL abstractions, and surfaces as an Android framework event. The failure chain spans 4+ layers — and no existing tool connects them.

Distributed Vehicle Software System

Issues cascade across IVI head units, digital clusters, ADAS modules, and connectivity ECUs. A single root cause in one compute node triggers symptoms across the entire vehicle software system.

CAN Bus at Scale

1-10 GB+ of CAN trace data with thousands of signals at 100 Hz across dozens of ECUs. Correlating this with Android logs, VHAL dumps, and kernel events manually is a multi-day effort.

Safety-Critical Stakes

13.4 million vehicles were recalled for software issues in 2024 — half of all recalls. 55% of vehicle launches are delayed due to software integration. The cost of missed bugs is enormous.

See It in Action: IVI Reboot Investigation

A real failure chain that spans the full vehicle software stack — from CAN bus to system crash. The kind of issue that takes days to debug manually.

The Failure Chain

CAN Bus Flood
VHAL Property Overload
GPU Buffer Exhaustion
OOM Condition
system_server Crash
IVI Reboot

Manual Investigation

~3 days

Open CANalyzer to find the CAN flood. Switch to ADB logcat to find VHAL overload. Grep dmesg for GPU buffer errors. Cross-reference timestamps manually across 4 different tools. Escalate across CAN, platform, and framework teams.

With logcat.ai

~5 minutes

Upload the bugreport and CAN trace. Ask "Why did the IVI reboot?" Deep Research autonomously traces the chain: CAN flood → VHAL overload → GPU exhaustion → OOM → system_server crash. Full root cause with citations.

From Fragmented Tools to Unified Intelligence

Vehicle software debugging today requires stitching together insights from disconnected tools. logcat.ai replaces that workflow.

Before: Manual Cross-Tool Correlation

  • Vector CANalyzer or PEAK PCAN for CAN bus trace analysis
  • ADB logcat for Android framework and application logs
  • dmesg and kernel console for BSP and driver events
  • Vendor-specific tools for ECU diagnostics and VHAL dumps
  • Manual timestamp correlation across all sources, often in spreadsheets

Days of work across multiple teams to connect the dots

After: Upload and Ask

  • Upload bugreport + CAN trace to logcat.ai
  • Ask "Why did the IVI reboot?" or "What caused the VHAL timeout?"
  • Autonomous investigation traces the full chain across every layer and delivers root cause with citations

Root cause in minutes, with the full cross-layer evidence chain

Built for the Distributed Vehicle Software System

AI-powered tools that understand the full vehicle stack — from CAN bus signals to Android framework events

Powered by Deep Research

An autonomous AI agent that investigates cross-layer vehicle issues. It traces CAN signals through VHAL to Android framework, correlates thermal events with driver behavior, and builds comprehensive root cause reports — without human guidance.

Delta for OTA Regression Detection

Compare bugreports and CAN traces across BSP versions, OTA updates, and vehicle variants. Isolate regressions that appeared between firmware releases — catch what changed before it reaches production.

Learn more about Delta

Cross-Layer Correlation

Trace issues from CAN bus signals → VHAL property events → Android framework → kernel. The AI reconstructs the full failure chain across every boundary in the vehicle software stack.

HW/SW Root Cause Separation

Automatically determine whether an issue originates in vehicle hardware, BSP firmware, Android framework, or application code — ending the cross-team blame game in minutes instead of days.

Autonomous Investigation for Vehicle Issues

Deep Research traces issues across CAN bus, VHAL, and Android framework layers automatically — no manual correlation required

Vehicle Cross-Layer Investigation

Multi-step analysis across CAN, VHAL, and framework layers

"What caused the IVI reboot at 09:15?"
Parse CAN Signals
Trace VHAL Events
Correlate Framework Logs
Identify Root Cause
Cross-Layer Root Cause

CAN flood → VHAL storm → GPU OOM → reboot

CAN Bus • VHAL Property Callback Overflow
AI correlates CAN bus signals with VHAL events and Android framework logs

OTA Regression Detection with Delta

Upload CAN traces, bugreports, and kernel logs from before and after an OTA update. Delta correlates timestamps across all sources and isolates exactly what changed — and what broke.

Delta Correlation Engine

Multi-file cross-layer analysis

Uploading...
CAN Bus Trace
09:15:01 0x18F: brake_pressure=0.8bar
09:15:02 0x1A0: engine_rpm=2400
09:15:03 0x3B0: camera_fault DTC=U0401
09:15:04 0x7DF: diag_req timeout
AAOS System Log
09:15:01 CarService: sensor_connected
09:15:02 VHAL: prop_update rear_cam
09:15:03 SurroundView: frame_drop x12
09:15:04 ClusterUI: ANR in rendering
ADAS ECU Log
09:15:01 ADAS: AEB armed v=65kph
09:15:02 ADAS: camera_feed latency 82ms
09:15:03 ADAS: camera_feed LOST
09:15:04 ADAS: AEB disengaged FAULT

Who Uses This

Automotive engineers across the distributed vehicle software system

IVI / Head Unit Engineers

Debug infotainment crashes, display failures, audio routing issues, and navigation hangs across Android Automotive head units.

AAOS Platform Teams

Investigate VHAL integration issues, CarService failures, thermal throttling, and BSP-level driver problems across vehicle variants.

HMI / Display Engineers

Debug UI rendering issues, touch input latency, display pipeline failures, and animation frame drops across vehicle displays and instrument clusters.

Vehicle Integration & QA

Validate OTA updates, compare pre/post-update logs with Delta, and catch regressions before they reach production vehicles.

Supported Log Types

Upload logs from IVI head units, digital clusters, ADAS modules, and CAN bus capture tools

Android Bugreports

Full system diagnostics from IVI, digital cluster, and ADAS modules running Android Automotive OS

CAN Bus Traces

.asc, .blf, .trc, .mf4, .csv, and candump formats — up to 10GB+ of vehicle bus data

VHAL & CarService Logs

Vehicle HAL property events, CarService dumps, and AAOS-specific framework diagnostics

Kernel & BSP Logs

Dmesg from vehicle BSPs — device tree issues, thermal zone events, driver probe failures

How to Export Your Logs

Capture logs from your vehicle development setup

ADB from Head Unit

  1. 1.Connect USB to IVI/head unit
  2. 2.Run adb bugreport
  3. 3.Upload the generated zip file

CAN Bus Capture

  1. 1.Use Vector CANalyzer, PEAK PCAN, or candump
  2. 2.Export as .asc, .blf, or .csv
  3. 3.Upload trace files to logcat.ai

VHAL Debug Dumps

  1. 1.Run dumpsys car_service on device
  2. 2.Capture VHAL property logs
  3. 3.Export as text file

Kernel Logs

  1. 1.Run dmesg on vehicle BSP
  2. 2.Capture boot and runtime logs
  3. 3.Upload for driver and thermal analysis

logcat.ai supports plaintext and structured CAN formats. Binary-only proprietary formats require export to a supported format first.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about automotive log analysis

logcat.ai supports .asc (Vector), .blf (BLF binary), .trc (PEAK), .mf4 (MDF4/ASAM), .csv (generic columnar), and candump text output. We handle files up to 10GB+ with thousands of signals across dozens of ECUs.

Yes. Delta accepts CAN traces alongside Android bugreports and kernel logs. It correlates timestamps across all sources to trace issues from vehicle bus signals through VHAL to Android framework events — finding cross-layer root causes automatically.

For Android logs, standard ADB is sufficient. For CAN bus data, any tool that exports to supported formats works — Vector CANalyzer, PEAK PCAN-View, candump, or any MDF4-compatible tool. VHAL and CarService logs can be captured with standard Android dumpsys commands.

logcat.ai works with any Android Automotive OS deployment — from IVI head units to digital clusters to ADAS modules. We support ARM and x86 architectures, and our kernel analysis covers vehicle-specific BSPs from major silicon vendors.

Deep Research is an autonomous AI agent that investigates vehicle issues step by step. It parses CAN signals, traces VHAL property events, correlates framework logs, and searches for known issues — building a comprehensive root cause report with citations in 5-10 minutes.

Upload bugreports from before and after an OTA update. Delta compares them side by side, identifying new crashes, changed behavior, performance regressions, and driver failures that appeared between firmware versions. It's particularly useful for BSP updates where regressions can be subtle.

Yes. All data is encrypted at rest (AES-256) and in transit (TLS 1.3). Your log data is never used to train AI models. We use AI APIs with zero-data-retention agreements. Enterprise customers can get dedicated cloud instances with custom data retention policies.

Start Analyzing Your Vehicle Logs

See how logcat.ai can reduce your automotive debugging time from days to minutes. Full access during your 30 day pilot.

Get Started