To Sustain Mobility Smart Vehicle Platform is the Key

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In a blog post Aptiv propounds that today’s automotive systems built on traditional architectures have become too hard to design, develop, validate and maintain. To efficiently and affordably integrate new features such as higher levels of automation and electrification into the vehicles of today and tomorrow, automakers need something new: a sustainable platform we call Smart Vehicle Architecture (SVA).

Development is too complicated, while large components are difficult to install during manufacturing. Post production component changes are too complex.

SVA changes all that in three key ways.
One: SVA Abstracts hardware from software.

With SVA, you can create independent lifecycles, faster software launches and simpler hardware validation and updates when needed. Plus, fully defined interfaces simplify software development and hardware interaction.

Two: SVA separates I/O from compute.

SVA allows you to remove the input/output (I/O) from expensive domain controllers and place them in zone docking stations, while also utilizing ring networks and topologies to optimize power and data distribution.

Three: SVA enables the “serverization” of compute.

With SVA, you can centralize compute functionality into four or five physical compute platforms while enabling resource-sharing by operating logically as one central compute “cluster”.

SVA: Simple + Scalable = Sustainable 

So how does SVA make all this happen? Let’s work from the outside in on the vehicle, starting with the Power Data Center (PDC). The PDC comprises the four to six zone controllers stationed along the outer rings of the SVA topology, and acts as a “universal docking station” for sensors and separates the vehicle into manageable zones, each with its own local control over power distribution and functionality.

Moving inward, we find the Unified Power and Data Backbone. This physically simplified, modular, and automatable harness technology varies only in length from vehicle-to-vehicle, and is designed for redundant networks via its dual-ring topology.

Then we come to the Central Compute Cluster, the universal compute platform where we find the key domains of Safety, User Experience, Propulsion & Chassis, and the Connected Secure Gateway. Thanks to advanced middleware, these domain controllers are able to share compute and dynamically allocate resources as needed.

Simply put, these three SVA solutions address today’s main technical limitations, with the result being a sustainable architecture over the life of the vehicle and platform.