There is even more connected car news from Mobile World Congress from Qualcomm, TomTom, Ford, Ericsson, Ficosa and Infinenon. The news involves software platforms, collaboration, wireless transmissions, transport, 5G and transceivers.
Qualcomm + TomTom + Mercedes-Benz Motor Sports
Qualcomm Technologies announced it is working with TomTom (TOM2), a global leader in navigation and mapping products, on using the Qualcomm Drive Data Platform for high-definition (HD) map crowdsourcing, to accelerate the future of autonomous driving. Qualcomm Drive Data Platform utilizes cutting-edge technologies to intelligently collect and analyze data from different vehicle sensors, supporting smarter vehicles to determine their location, monitor and learn driving patterns, perceive their surroundings and share this perception with the rest of the world reliably and accurately. TomTom’s HD Map, including RoadDNA, is a revolutionary, highly accurate, digital map-based product, which assists automated vehicles to precisely locate themselves on the road and help determine which way to maneuver, even when traveling at high speeds.
Traditional development of maps requires deploying dedicated fleets of vehicles that are equipped with professional-grade sensors to collect location, raw imagery, Lidar and other data, which is then transferred, stored and processed in data centers. Now that cars are increasingly connected and equipped with a range of sensors, new and complimentary approaches become possible.
Using the precise positioning, on-device machine learning, heterogeneous compute and connectivity capabilities of the Qualcomm Drive Data Platform, which features the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820Am automotive processor, TomTom and Qualcomm Technologies aim to facilitate adding an improved, scalable and cost-efficient crowdsourcing approach to the mix of sources for HD map making. The new concept is designed to allow massive numbers of connected cars to see and understand their environment, traffic and road conditions, and support real-time input for map and road condition updates.
Qualcomm Technologies, In., and Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, are conducting field trials to test high-speed wireless download of vehicle sensor information utilizing 802.11ad Wi-Fi technology in the 60 GHz band. With the success of initial testing conducted during the Formula 1TM US Grand Prix in the 2016 season, Qualcomm Technologies and Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport plan to continue technology development and conduct additional trials during the British Grand Prix in July. During these field trials, race engineers utilize both 5 GHz 802.11ac and Multi-gigabit 802.11ad Wi-Fi technology, which operates in the millimeter wave (mmWave) 60GHz band, to gather data directly from the team’s race car while in, or approaching the garage. The handover between the two 802.11 modes are handled automatically as radio conditions dictate throughput performance.
The goal of the trial is to accelerate how quickly and efficiently data can be pulled from the vehicle, as well as help evaluate vehicle performance under extreme race conditions, helping with quicker assessments and less time in the pit lane. Utilizing motorsport as a test bed, Qualcomm Technologies can also utilize the trial to assist in further developing technologies and applications that can be potentially used for safer road vehicles, as well as the pursuit of the wireless garage.
Ford Shows Virtual City of Tomorrow
For more than half a century, vans have played a key role in deliveries. Drones are a modern phenomenon. But, the two could work hand in hand to improve mobility in urban areas in one example of Ford’s vision for the “City of Tomorrow”.
Self-driving vans could quickly and efficiently transport everything from groceries, to urgently needed medical supplies on the ground, with drones potentially able to take to the air for the final leg of the journey to reach destinations inaccessible by car such as, high up in a tower block – or where parking would be difficult, impractical, or unsafe.
The innovative “Autolivery” concept, developed by a team of Ford employees for the company’s Last Mile Mobility Challenge, imagines electric self-driving vans used together with drones to pick up and drop off goods and packages in urban areas. The concept can be experienced through virtual reality headsets at Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest gathering for the mobile industry, in Barcelona, as part of Ford’s vision of the “City of Tomorrow”.
The experience showed dinner party preparations, with a missing ingredient quickly ordered and delivered in time to add to the recipe. As new data reveals that motorists in Europe’s cities spent up to 91 hours sitting in congested traffic during 2016, the “Autolivery” service illustrates how new technologies could improve the lives of consumers with smart connected homes, and help to pave the way to a more sustainable future. *
The Autolivery idea, one of many submitted by Ford employees to tackle the last mile challenge, paid particular attention to the challenge of the “last 15 meters” in goods delivery. Widely considered the most challenging part of the goods delivery process to automate, many companies are working on how to solve the complexity of delivering packages the last 15 meters, or from kerb to door. The pressure to solve this challenge is expected to increase globally in coming years with GDP growth, and a rise in local deliveries due to online sales.
Ericsson Pioneers a Connected Future in transport
Ericsson announced the launch of its Connected Vehicle Marketplace (CVM) at Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress – the world’s largest gathering for the mobile technology industry.
Also confirmed today is Ericsson’s first CVM customer – Swedish heavy goods vehicle (HGV) maker, Scania, with its launch of ‘Scania One’.
CVM is a game-changing white label solution aimed at reducing the complexities of building digital service ‘ecosystems’ for the growing global population of connected vehicles. Analysts predict the size of the global connected vehicle fleet will total 382 million by 2025*. The connected fleet of Scania trucks already numbers 250,000 units – amounting to two-thirds of all Scania vehicles sold in the past five years.
Scania One is a digital, open customer platform that gives fleet owners, drivers and fleet owners’ customers, access to services and data to include fleet management, route planning, transport flow, fuel economy, optimum driving style and much more – all developed to increase efficiency, safety and productivity.
Already, 50,000 Scania customers are using connected vehicle fleets, and report up to 10%** gains in fuel economy and a desire to only buy connected vehicles in future.
Through its connected vehicles, Scania knows the logistical flow in the operations of fleet owners’ customers, ranging from large-scale construction sites, to public transport, to long haul transport. With Scania One, the digital tools are at the disposal of fleet owners and drivers to ensure gains in these flows are realised and waste is minimalised.
Building on the success of the Ericsson Connected Vehicle Cloud, CVM is a controlled and secure environment for vehicle manufacturers to provide new digital services for their drivers’ perusal, and in turn, deepen the relationship between manufacturers, vehicles and drivers. The solution is the first of its kind and will enable manufacturers to fully manage the inclusion of third-party digital services seamlessly and efficiently, all integrated into one digital marketplace.
CVM provides access to the largest and widest variety of data available in the automotive sector, allowing manufacturers to quickly and securely deploy – via secure, dependable streaming – an infinite number of applications, services and content to vehicles and drivers. Network reliability and performance is managed by Ericsson, allowing manufacturers and partners to focus on innovating.
With the rapidly growing number of connected vehicles on our roads – both for commercial vehicles and passenger cars – there has been no way for manufacturers to share data with third parties efficiently, securely and in a scale-able manner, until now. CVM enables this in a digitally connected ‘ecosystem’ that allows partners and innovators to create and invent new telematics services for the automotive industry.
Data integrity has been a concern for parties involved in such connected ecosystems, and establishing complete trust is paramount in engaging the various parties in this connected revolution. With this in mind, Ericsson has ensured that data integrity is a centrepiece of the new CVM in a secure system that allows all parties to manage – on an individual or vehicle level – which data is shared with which party.
The Connected Vehicle Cloud and Marketplace are powered by Ericsson’s revolutionary IoT solution – bringing secure, world-class mobile connectivity management and offering rapid IoT deployment and monetization capabilities to billions of users in more than 180 countries around the world.
Ficosa Connected Rental Cars, Smart Connectivity & 5G
Ficosa, a top-tier global provider devoted to the research, development, manufacturing and marketing of high-technology vision, safety, connectivity and efficiency systems for the automotive and mobility sectors, presents the latest technological developments in connected car and autonomous vehicle at the Mobile World Congress 2017. In this edition Ficosa lands at the MWC along with Panasonic with a stand that simulates a connected airport, showing the latest connectivity solutions developed for different sectors, from retail and automobile, to communication, security and logistics, between others.
In the car rental area of the booth, Ficosa exhibits the most innovative connectivity solutions of the industry. All assistants who visit this space will find a car in which Ficosa has integrated its latest developments, will discover the company’s work on connected and autonomous vehicles, and see live one of its star products, the Smart Connectivity Module (SCM).
The Smart Connectivity Module 3.0, one step further towards the autonomous vehicle
Ficosa presents the third generation of the Smart Connectivity Module (SCM) at the MWC, a solution that turns the car into a self-connective device providing all passengers with simultaneous and independent connectivity.
This system offers a secure connection for communications inside and outside the car, and for communication between vehicles (V2V) and with infrastructure (V2I). The SCM provides up to 9 simultaneous internet connections for the vehicle and passengers to watch movies, listen to music, play online games, tune in high definition radio and download and store contents. It also provides important features to improve safety, such as the automatic emergency call, the geolocation of the vehicle, the speed control, the assistance service or the management of the dangerous areas and those with limited visibility in order to avoid accidents.
The new generation of this system includes important improvements like the FOTA service (Firmware Upgrade Over-the-Air), which allows the vehicle’s software to be updated without having to connect it to any physical device, incorporates a high grade of cybersecurity and is much more compact than its previous versions, providing a better integration of the connectivity platform to the vehicle and being visually imperceptible.
The Smart Connectivity Module introduces in one single device different sorts of wireless telephony technologies, such as LTE, WIFI, Bluetooth, AM and FM, DAB and GNSS positioning for each specific market and the mandatory emergency call in Europe (eCall) and Russia (ERA-GLONASS).
The 5G technology revolution
Ficosa is intensely working to be at the forefront of vehicle connectivity development and 5G technology. An example of this is that it has recently become the first Spanish company to join the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA). The mission of this association is to accelerate development, standardisation and marketing of solutions for connected cars and autonomous vehicles and their integration into Smart Cities, as well as laying the groundwork for implementing 5G technology in the automotive sector.
Joan Palacin, Advanced Communications Business Unit director, notes: “The development and implementation of 5G technology will be a new revolution in the telecommunications and automotive sector, as it will offer higher capacity connections and will boost solutions and services based on virtual reality and artificial intelligence. In Ficosa, we always look to the future and new technologies, collaborating with the main ecosystem companies in the definition of the new services of mobility and autonomous driving”.
Ficosa and Panasonic, working together to make the car of the future a reality
Ficosa has been working on connectivity systems for the automotive industry for more than 10 years in order to anticipate the needs of automobile manufacturers (OEM). The company is focused on connectivity platforms with integrated antennas (SCM), Telematics Control units (TCU) and vehicle-infrastructure technology (V2X), which allows vehicles to connect to communication networks, other vehicles and infrastructure.
Ficosa’s alliance with Panasonic, which responds to the goal of both companies of increasing their technological capabilities and integrating complementary technologies, offers a great potential for them to lead together the transformation of the automobile in the field of connectivity. In that sense, Ficosa’s units, together with Panasonic’s information and entertainment systems, will provide the user a wide range of new services with high added value.
Infineon
Infineon Technologies now leverages the 4G experience and enables the 5G vision for cellular infrastructure and mobile devices by providing the leading RF technologies and key building blocks. Infineon provides the highly efficient and integrated architecture that 5G systems demand. As proprietary of the broadest portfolio available in the market serving the wide 5G frequencies spectrum, Infineon combines:
- High efficiency RF power technologies, namely GaN-on-SiC and GaN-on-Si for integrated architectures above 6 GHz and LDMOS for price competitive and high ruggedness sub 6 GHz systems. Packaging innovations enable wideband integrated Doherty amplifiers.
- Flexible RF solutions for mobile and low power infrastructure including SiGe, BiCMOS, GaN mmW technologies and RF CMOS. They allow for optimal performance requirements granting alternative options, from cost optimized designs to high integration needs
- Scalable mmW solutions for frequencies as high as 100 GHz allowing customers a large degree of flexibility in design-phase and helping them to reduce time-to-market.
Infineon has shipped more than 20 million mmW transceivers in radar applications adopting beamforming technique and is an acknowledged innovation leader in automotive radar. The company is paving the way in phase-shift technology for highest spatial beam accuracy and enables massive MIMO and multiple arrays based systems. At the same time, Infineon continues to cover the network landscape for macro-cell base stations, small cells, backhaul and end-user devices.
High volume production with seamless supply, quality and reliability complement Infineon’s holistic offering to make the 5G vision happen.
At Mobile World Congress 2017 (hall 6, booth 6C41), Infineon will demonstrate semiconductor solutions for secured and energy efficient communication in the connected world. Highlights include intelligent street lamps for a smart traffic infrastructure, security gateways to protect connected devices in the smart home as well as new concepts for facilitating the interaction of humans and machines by using voice and gesture recognition.