Installing application program code on a vehicle control system

A method of installing application program code onto a control system for a vehicle, the method comprising:

• downloading the application program code to the control system via an interface;
• installing the downloaded application program code on the control system;
• determining whether the control system is able to communicate with an external device via the interface while running the installed application program code by:
• launching the installed application program code at the control system,
• receiving data from the external device via the interface, at the control system,
• controlling the installed application program code to write the received data to memory, and
• determining that the control system was able to communicate with the external device via the interface in dependence on the data in the memory matching a stored copy of the data;
• and
• subsequently loading the installed application program code on startup of the control system, in dependence on determining that the control system was able to communicate with the external device.

A control system for a vehicle, the control system comprising

• at least one electronic memory device and
• at least one controller configured to:
• download application program code onto the control system via an interface;
• install the downloaded application program code on the control system;
• determine whether the control system is able to communicate with an external device via the interface while running the installed application program code;
• and
• subsequently load the installed application program code on startup of the control system, in dependence on a determination that the control system was able to communicate with the external device, wherein the at least one controller is configured to determine whether the control system is able to communicate with the external device via the interface while running the installed application program code by:
• launching the installed application program code at the control system;
• receiving data from the external device via the interface, at the control system;
• controlling the installed application program code to write the received data to shared memory accessible to the control system and a bootloader application;
• rebooting the control system and launching the bootloader application;
• in the bootloader application, comparing the data in the shared memory to a copy of the data written to bootloader memory by the external device, where the bootloader memory comprises memory accessible to the bootloader application;
• and
• determining that the control system was able to communicate with the external device via the interface in dependence on the data in the shared memory matching the copy of the data in the bootloader memory.