In connected car news this week were Renesas, Inseego, Daimler, Capgemini, Western Digital, Verra Mobility, NXP, Green Hills, INTEGRITY, HELLA, Wind River, Samsung, ZF, Aldec, Chargepoint and Molex.
Inseego Picked
Inseego Corp. a pioneer in 5G and intelligent IoT device-to-cloud solutions, has been selected by Tructyre Fleet Management, a Michelin Group company (PARIS: ML), to deploy its industry-leading Ctrack Fleet Management technology. As part of Tructyre’s ongoing initiative to improve fleet operations, the Ctrack device-to-cloud platform has been implemented to achieve greater visibility both centrally and across the company’s network of 24 depots in their UK operation.
Transforming Fleets with Ctrack: Globe-leading IoT Device-to-Cloud Intelligence
- Inseego’s Ctrack Fleet Management solution, which replaces a competing vehicle tracking service, was selected due to the platform’s ease of use, proven return-on-investment and functionality.
- By using the Ctrack system, Tructyre can further safeguard their workforce by improving driver behavior, increase productivity while targeting savings such as fuel consumption, asset utilization and optimization, wear and tear and insurance premiums.
Daimler Invests in Soul Machines
Daimler Financial Services, the financial and mobility services captive of German premium car and commercial vehicle company Daimler AG, announced at the Gartner Symposium in Orlando (FL) a strategic investment in Soul Machines, a ground-breaking New Zealand company re-imagining how humans connect with machines, to further develop the combined use of artificial and emotional intelligence. Daimler is the first premium brand in the automotive sector to develop emotional intelligence use cases based on Soul Machine’s technology.
Capgemini Smart Mobility Connect
Capgemini Invent today announced the launch of Smart Mobility Connect, its first premium global offering for the automotive industry. Smart Mobility Connect combines the strategy, technology, artificial intelligence and analytics and creative design expertise of Capgemini Invent to help automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) identify new business opportunities, accelerate implementation speeds and increase customer satisfaction.
Western Digital 3D TLC NAND
Addressing the demand of advanced automotive systems such as Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles, Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) introduced the first 3D TLC NAND automotive embedded UFS flash drive (EFD), expanding its portfolio of high-quality, high-endurance automotive storage solutions. The Western Digital iNAND® AT EU312 EFD is based on the established UFS 2.1 interface and delivers high capacities and up to 2.5 times the performance of the company’s previous e.MMC-based products, while maintaining the rigorous quality and reliability levels required for automotive-grade devices.
Connected vehicles require fast and reliable data storage in increasingly higher capacities to support the vast amounts of data being generated, analyzed and accessed by digital cluster, infotainment, 3D map and navigation, telematics, ADAS applications, augmented reality and other advanced automotive systems. The Western Digital iNAND AT EU312 EFD is designed to operate in V2X environments, both in vehicle and infrastructure systems, that are constantly generating and streaming data for real-time and offline data analytics.
Western Digital iNAND AT EU312 UFS EFD Features:
- High Capacity: Available in capacities ranging from 16GB to 256GB* based on 3D NAND technology
- Performance: Delivers write speeds up to 550 MB/s and read speeds up to 800 MB/s**
- Automotive Quality and Reliability: Features advanced memory management firmware and hardware, including robust error correction code (ECC), and is compliant with the JEDEC47, ISO26262, and AEC-Q100 Grade 3 and Grade 2 standards
- Expanded Smart Features for OEMs: Western Digital provides a suite of automotive smart features, including enhanced power failure protection, a comprehensive memory health status monitor, enhanced SLC LUN, and OEM configurable boot partitioning
Verra Mobility Peasy Pay-as-You-Go
Verra Mobility, the leading provider of tech-enabled smart transportation solutions, announced the national availability launch of its new consumer digital mobility platform, Peasy™, a nationwide* pay-as-you-go tolling service that aims to make toll management and payments effortless and headache-free with a single account. The new consumer service and mobile application are simplifying the tolling process by finally allowing drivers to travel on 95% of cashless toll roads and bridges throughout the U.S.* without additional hardware, transponders or multiple tolling accounts.
The Peasy tolling service eliminates the need for pre-funding a toll account, incurring unexpected penalties or fines, or having to pay tolls by mail thanks to its market-first pay-as-you go technology. The service can work for drivers with existing transponder or toll tag accounts as well as for those who do not have an existing account with a toll authority, and will allow households to add multiple vehicles to a single Peasy account. Peasy subscribers will have the ability to seamlessly travel and pay tolls across state lines and with different regional tolling authorities, while its convenient, user-friendly web and mobile-based account dashboards provide quick access to track toll history and expenses.
NXP Secure Virtualization
NXP Tech Days Detroit — Green Hills Software, the worldwide leader in high assurance operating systems, announced the availability of its INTEGRITY® Multivisor™ secure virtualization for the NXP® Semiconductors i.MX 8 and 8X families of applications processors. For the first time, manufacturers of critical automotive and industrial systems can confidently run consumer operating systems in secure partitions alongside critical software applications on the same i.MX 8 processor, thanks to the certified separation architecture of the INTEGRITY real-time operating system and its Multivisor secure virtualization technology.
With the freedom to consolidate Linux, Android and AUTOSAR with critical software on the same i.MX 8-based platform, manufacturers can design a scalable mixed-criticality platform from which to build solutions targeting low, mid and high-end feature sets. In addition, the consolidated platform reduces hardware costs and simplifies software complexity.
Global automotive carmakers and their Tier 1 suppliers in North America, Europe and Asia have already chosen INTEGRITY Multivisor secure virtualization for tens of millions of vehicles requiring safe consolidation of Linux and Android environments with ASIL-certified applications such as digital instrument clusters, telematics and automated driving. The same secure virtualization capabilities enable safe consolidation in industrial systems for combining consumer operating systems and their human machine interfaces (HMI) with critical applications certified to the industrial standard IEC 61508.
INTEGRITY with Green Hills ASIL D/SIL
INTEGRITY and INTEGRITY Multivisor are integrated with Green Hills Software’s advanced ASIL D/SIL 4 qualified development tools featuring the industry-leading C/C++ compilers, MULTI® integrated development environment, TimeMachine™ backward execution trace debugger, and MISRA C Adherence Checker. As a result, software developers utilize advanced tools to extract maximum performance from the i.MX 8 processors and reduce the time and cost to debug and test their software and meet project deadlines. For example, the MULTI debugger provides the programmer a time-synchronized and unified view and control of the many execution levels in a consolidated Linux system: Linux applications, Linux kernel and drivers, real-time applications, real-time operating system kernel and virtual machine monitor. In contrast, competing debuggers require a patchwork of different and disconnected debugging setups from several different vendors.
The INTEGRITY RTOS and Multivisor platform for NXP i.MX 8 and 8X families of applications processors includes support for:
- Secure virtualization and separation technology allowing ISO 26262 and IEC 61508-certified applications to coexist with general-purpose code or guest operating systems with freedom from interference. The platform can monitor the health of all applications and guest operating systems in real-time.
- Fully accelerated hardware virtualization leveraging the Arm architecture virtualization extension.
- Highly configurable virtualization platform allowing users to seamlessly configure peripheral routing and utilization between INTEGRITY RTOS and any guest operating system, including the ability to safely share peripherals between critical tasks and general-purpose tasks or guest operating systems.
- Fully accelerated 3D graphics utilizing i.MX 8 graphics processing unit (GPU), including the capability to fully share the GPU between the host RTOS and multiple guest operating systems, all while ensuring the RTOS graphics applications have guaranteed priority for meeting functional safety requirements.
- Complete AUTOSAR-compliant application framework, allowing existing AUTOSAR software components to be seamlessly and tightly integrated, providing for maximum software reuse without the need for virtualization.
- Advanced software development tools including the ISO 26262 ASIL D / IEC 61508 SIL 4 qualified MULTI IDE, optimizing C/C++ compilers, MISRA C Adherence Checker and other integrated tools to improve code quality and lower development costs.
Availability
INTEGRITY and its comprehensive set of integrated software and hardware tools for the NXP i.MX 8 and 8X families are used by customers today. INTEGRITY Multivisor for the i.MX 8 and 8X is available today to early access customers and demonstrated at the NXP Technology Days event in Detroit and Arm TechCon in San Jose.
HELLA SHAKE Detects Road Conditions
HELLA’s Structural Health and Knock Emission (SHAKE) Sensor for Road Condition Detection – a first-of-its-kind solution for providing cars with the sense of hearing and touch in order to increase a vehicle’s awareness of road conditions – is a finalist for the 2019 Automotive News PACE Awards. This is the second consecutive year that HELLA has been named a finalist for this prestigious awards program that sets the standard for industry excellence and innovation by recognizing game-changing technologies.
With wet pavement being a top contributor to the nearly 5,900 deaths caused by weather-related crashes each year in the U.S. (according to the U.S. Department of Transportation), helping vehicles better travel on wet roads is a primary concern of major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). HELLA’s revolutionary SHAKE sensor addresses this longtime problem by detecting structure and airborne sounds through a piezoelectric film element. By giving the vehicle the ability to hear and feel its environment, the SHAKE can precisely measure the amount of liquid on roads to alert drivers (via a popup message on the dashboard) or automated systems of the preventive actions required to handle hazardous conditions, such as hydroplaning, and prevent accidents. In addition, the technology’s acute sensing capabilities are essential for enabling future autonomous driving, and can be applied to serve other critical functions down the road such as structural health monitoring, smart touch detection and intelligent damage detection.//
Amastan Tech DOE Grant
Amastan Technologies, a leading producer of high value advanced materials using microwave plasma production systems, announced it has been awarded a $1 million Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant through the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) to continue its development of advanced cathode materials for electric vehicle (EV) batteries. The grant follows Amastan’s completion of a successful Phase I program to develop cathode materials using its proprietary UniMelt™ advanced manufacturing platform.
Ford Uses Wind River’s OTA Update Tech
Wind River, a leader in delivering IoT software for safety-critical domains including automotive, announced that Ford Motor Company is using Wind River over-the-air (OTA) update technology.
To deliver advanced connected car capabilities, Wind River Edge Sync technology can provide differential updates that allow the ability to minimize data update size, transmission time, and memory usage for updating vehicle software over the air. By creating the most minimal differential update possible during OTA updates, this approach offers the potential for cost reductions as well as a better experience for consumers.
With OTA updates, carmakers can rapidly deploy secure, cost-efficient updates and new features to connected vehicles, eliminating software recalls and the associated costs.
Edge Sync is a software framework for remote OTA updates and software lifecycle management that allows for rapid, safe, and secure updates to software and firmware throughout the vehicle lifecycle, from initial product development through to the end of life of the vehicle. Edge Sync enables rapid, cost-effective solutions for software-related updates, corrections to security vulnerabilities, and feature-related recalls, as well as helps automakers introduce new and exciting value-add features to vehicles that are already in the hands of customers.
Samsung Exynos Auto and ISOCELL Auto
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today announced two new automotive solution brands — Samsung Exynos Auto and Samsung ISOCELL Auto – to bring cutting-edge application processor and image sensor technology solutions to the road.
Samsung’s Exynos processors have been recognized for their performance and stability since its brand launched in 2011. On top of the powerful yet efficient qualities of Exynos’ mobile versions, Exynos Auto meets industry requirements for harsher environments, allowing automotive manufacturers to develop cutting-edge applications such as infotainment, advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS) and telematics.
Processors provided by Exynos Auto are sorted into three sub-categories: Exynos Auto V series for advanced in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems; Exynos Auto A series for ADAS; and Exynos Auto T series for telematics solutions.
Samsung’s ISOCELL image sensors have brought innovative imaging technologies to mobile products since 2017 and the new automotive lineup will help bring the power of sight to cars. Built on the company’s innovative pixel isolation technology, ISOCELL, the sensors provide greater visibility of the road and surroundings even in low-light environments, while enabling more precise identification of objects. This allows, for example, vehicles to perceive road conditions or potential hazards even when driving through tunnels or other high-contrast environments.
Renesas’ Connected Car Software Dev Tools
To spur the development of cloud-linked services utilizing vehicle data, Renesas Electronics Corporation (TSE: 6723), a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, announced the availability of its Connected Car Software Development Tools. Using the new tools, developers working with the R-Car system-on-chip (SoC) family can create applications, such as predictive safety infotainment applications that link dynamic data from the vehicle and the cloud in real time with algorithms developed based on big data in the cloud. This enables out-of-the-box development of innovative applications instead of the traditional approach of simply connecting the vehicle to the cloud, making cloud services available in the vehicle.
Due to the unique challenges of managing vehicle data and the need to develop applications under conditions where in-vehicle testing is difficult or impossible, it has been difficult for software developers to leverage the rich cloud services that Amazon Web Services™ (AWS™) provides through vehicle data at the edge, such as predictive driving support applications. Renesas’ new software development toolset makes it possible to generate new services that combine, in real time, vehicle data (e.g., the driving status and the state of the drivers) and cloud-based data (e.g., construction, congestion, or other road conditions) as well as weather reports and maps.
To link the cloud and the edge, Renesas has adopted AWS’ cloud services and the Greengrass for its software development tools. The software development tools have been validated by both AWS Greengrass and AWS IoT core and have been tested to run on the R-Car Starter Kit under Automotive Grade Linux environment.
Furthermore, scalability of such applications could be extended to enable coordination with additional data from driver monitoring. For example, predictive driving assistance can be realized in which the application would make calculations based on data from the vehicle, such as information on driver emergencies, driving skills, fuel, or tire pressure, plus forecasts of weather or road conditions from the cloud, and determine the optimal route or provide coaching to the driver. Realization of these new services will not only enhance convenience and safety for drivers, it will also help “mobility businesses” such as automakers, dealerships, insurance companies, and car rental agencies to expand and provide more added value to customers. This leads to accelerate the entry of new businesses in the service layer and bring innovations leading to a new age of mobility.
ZF 3D IOS
ZF is developing a three-dimensional Interior Observation System (IOS) capable of detecting and classifying vehicle occupants, determining their size, location and position, and whether or not they are in active control of the vehicle via the steering wheel or monitoring the automated driving systems – all key data to assist with advanced safety and automated driving functions.
ZF is now developing a 3D camera interior observation system supporting a broad variety of potential safety, comfort and AD applications.
Aldec ADAS Bird’s Eye View DEV Kit
Aldec, Inc., an industry leader in electronic design verification, is making available yet more support for automotive design engineers with the addition of an Advanced Driver-Assistance System (ADAS) ‘Bird’s Eye View’ reference design for its TySOM™-3-ZU7EV embedded development kit.
Bird’s Eye View is an embedded vision (EV) feature currently in high demand for ADAS as it provides a 360o surrounding view of the vehicle, as if seen from above. As a minimum the feature will assist drivers when parking but it also has the potential to play a role in obstacle detection and for providing lane departure warnings.
The reference design is available with Aldec’s TySOM™-3-ZU7EV embedded development kit and requires an FMC-ADAS daughter card and four fisheye cameras; also available from Aldec either separately or as part of Bird’s Eye View bundle.
The Bird’s Eye View reference design makes the most of the Zynq device’s processing system (software) and programmable logic (firmware) parallel processing capabilities, and has six stages. These are: 1 – image capture (firmware), 2 – frame resize (software & firmware), 3 – lens distortion removal (software & firmware), 4 – perspective transformation (software & firmware), 5 – final image creation (firmware) and 6 – output to display and/or other ADAS systems (firmware).
The TySOM-3-ZU7EV features a Xilinx® Zynq® UltraScale+™ MPSoC device, which provides 64-bit processor (dual-core ARM® Cortex™) scalability while combining real-time control with soft and hard engines for graphics, video, waveform, and packet processing.
Aldec provides a HW/SW co-simulation solution for Zynq-based applications in the form of Riviera-PRO™, the company’s popular functional verification tool, when used in conjunction with open-source Quick Emulation (QEMU).
ChargePoint goes with FLO
ChargePoint and FLO announced a landmark roaming partnership that provides electric vehicle (EV) drivers across North America a seamless charging experience. Much like roaming between cell phone networks, ChargePoint and FLO members can now effortlessly access public chargers on both networks while travelling in the US and Canada, without the need to register for multiple accounts or incur additional fees.
ChargePoint, the leading EV charging network in the US and FLO, the EV charging leader in Canada, collectively have a significant presence across North America. The partnership not only simplifies EV driving for ChargePoint and FLO drivers, but demonstrates what is possible when industry leaders share a commitment to make it easier for drivers to charge wherever they go. This partnership is the first agreement of its kind in North America and creates a benchmark for future collaboration among players in the electric mobility sphere.
Molex stAK50h
Molex, a leading global manufacturer of electronic solutions, recently launched the stAK50h Unsealed Connection System, designed to deliver both signal and Ethernet connectivity in automotive body electronics, safety and driver assist, comfort and infotainment devices and modules.
The USCAR-2-compliant stAK50h Connection System expedites validation time for Tier One automotive manufacturers making design changes and launching new vehicle models. The stackable header design eliminates costly custom tooling, engineering and validation time typically required in multi-bay automotive device and module configurations.
Incorporating through-hole style unsealed headers and hybrid connectors, the single- to multi-bay stAK50h Connector System meets industry-standard footprints based on 0.50mm, 1.20mm and 2.80mm terminal sizes widely used in automotive applications. The hybrid system is available with 12- to 56-circuit receptacles and can be used in applications ranging from low-current signal (5.0A) to high-power applications (30.0A).
In automotive design, overly complex terminal designs and connector interfaces within a vehicle can lead to mis-mating and faulty connections. The stAK50h Unsealed Connection System headers and receptacles are color-matched to enable quick identification and easy assembly. The Connector Position Assurance (CPA) latching feature prevents accidental disengagement of the stAK50h connection system.
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