It comes as no surprise that Audi has been working with Delphi and other tech giants to get auto-piloted Audis on the road. Audi will use Delphi as the future system supplier for the zFAS electronics board that is about the size of a tablet, is upgradeable and will eventually communicate with the cloud via 4G LTE.
Audi worked with TTTech, Mobileye, NVIDIA and Delphi to develop hardware and software components.
The zFas is a central controller while other current driver systems use separate controllers.
The self-driving Audi A7 zFAS driver assistance controller uploaded data collected during the Vegas road trip to the Cloud where it was processed, then transmitted back to the car, making it an intelligent and adaptive vehicle.
zFAS intakes sensor data that the controller uses to compute a view of surroundings and sends the information to different driver assistance systems.
The zFAS board is equipped with the EyeQ3 mobile processor from Mobileye and the new Tegra K1 from nVidia. It has the computing power of all the electronics of a well-equipped mid-size car.
The zFAS is modular and scalable with the ability to be upgraded later, making it future-proof.
Audi is also working with Bosch, Continental, Valeo and Delphi on the sensors and other driving functions including braking and steering systems.
Their goal is to develop common standards for autonomous driving.
Soon, Audi claims that Audi connect will enable the piloted cars from Audi to also learn continuously as they drive.
The data computed by the zFAS board will be transferred via the 4G LTE to the cloud where it will be processed before sending the data back to the car. The zFAS board is designed to learn and respond increasingly better with each new situation.