Connected Car News: Renesas, P-Chip, Quanergy, Cepton, Otonomo, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Kanglim, Ridecell, Cary & MCA Connect

In connected car news are Renesas, P-Chip, Quanergy, Cepton, Otonomo, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Kanglim, Ridecell, Cary and MCA Connect.

Renesas AHL Hi-Def Video

Renesas Electronics Corporation (TSE:6723), a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, introduced its new Automotive HD Link (AHL) technology that enables automotive manufacturers to deliver high-definition video over low-cost cables and connectors that currently support standard-definition video. HD video is increasingly important in car safety systems for object recognition functionality. Renesas is a leader in the Advanced Driver Assist Systems (ADAS) market, and AHL can be paired with other Renesas products, such as the R-Car Automotive SoCs, RH850 MCUs, automotive PMICs, and analog components to cost-effectively implement numerous safety features in virtually any vehicle.

The new RAA279971 AHL encoder and RAA279972 decoder use a modulated analog signal to transmit the video, enabling transmission rates 10 times less than required to transmit HD signals digitally. The lower transmission rate means that traditional twisted pair cables and standard connectors can be used, as can existing analog video cables and connectors. On the other hand, digital links such as SerDes require heavily shielded cables and high-end connectors that cost significantly more than those for AHL, may require replacement after 5-7 years and are difficult to route due to bending radius limitations.

AHL is robust against noise and has a bi-directional control channel that operates independent of the video data and can initialize, program, and monitor the camera module. A key AHL performance and cost reducing feature is the ability to control the camera simultaneously over the same pair of wires (UTP) during video transmission. Another safety benefit of AHL is its performance in comparison to a digital link. In a rear view camera application, a digital link will degrade due to a failure in the cable harness or connector assembly, as weak signals can cause macroblocks to appear, hiding large portions of the viewing area. Using the same cable under the same conditions for comparison, the AHL link will present a slight change in video color or contrast, but all pixels will appear on the screen, and the image will precisely identify an object or person behind the vehicle.

Key Features of AHL

  • Supports resolutions from VGA up to 720p/60 or 1080p/30 for flexibility to implement non-standard vertical resolutions (not just the TV video standard 16:9 resolutions)
  • MIPI-CSI2, BT656, & DVP inputs and outputs provide flexible interface to support old and new image sensors
  • Requires only 27MHz crystal clock, with internal PLLs able to generate the necessary clock frequencies for higher resolutions

Availability

The new RAA279971 AHL encoder and RAA279972 decoder are available today. Renesas also offers the RTKA279971DA2000BU AHL Encoder and the RTKA279972DA1000BU AHL Decoder evaluation boards. More information about AHL is available at www.renesas.com/AHL.

P-Chip Microtransponder

p-Chip Corp, a company that is revolutionizing the tracking of physical products and materials with its breakthrough microtransponder technology, today announced that Jeff Evanson has joined the company’s Advisory Board via an engagement with Traust IP Finance. Mr. Evanson, who previously served as Vice President of Global Investor Relations & Strategy at Tesla from 2011 to 2017, joins p-Chip Corp in its efforts to innovate its indexing solutions and secure additional funding.

Since 2017, p-Chip Corporation has revolutionized the tracking of physical products and materials with its breakthrough microtransponder technology. Its p-Chip, a highly durable chip as small as a grain of salt, functions like a digital anchor for physical items, delivering breakthrough visibility and index-ability at a scalable price point. From pharmaceuticals to electronics, automotive components to agricultural ingredients, companies worldwide rely on patented p-Chip tracking technology to unlock business intelligence, deepen brand loyalty, and enhance revenue. To learn more, visit www.p-chip.com

Kanglim Partners with Ridecell

Kanglim Co, Ltd, the 40 year-old global leader in specialty industrial vehicles, today announced a strategic alliance with Ridecell Inc., the leading platform powering digital transformations and IoT automation for fleet-driven businesses. Ridecell will collaborate with Kanglim to develop an IoT automation and mobility platform for specialty industrial vehicle fleets. Kanglim’s vehicles include industrial cranes, fire trucks, electrical work vehicles, aerial platforms, military and police equipment, and pump vehicles. Ridecell’s Fleet IoT platform will transform Kanglim’s specialty vehicles into the world’s first connected and smart industrial vehicle fleet.

In addition to the strategic alliance, Kanglim is also now an investor in Ridecell. The two companies will continue to collaborate on long-term innovations for the industry.

Quanergy Expands Agreement with PARIFEX

Quanergy Systems, Inc., a leading provider of OPA-based solid state LiDAR sensors and smart 3D solutions for automotive and IoT, today announced that it has expanded its exclusive agreement with PARIFEX, a leading solution provider in project management for speed enforcement and smart cities, to deploy Quanergy’s M-Series 3D-LiDAR sensors for highway speed monitoring and enforcement. The new project will be deployed with the French Ministry of Interior, with future expansion to global projects.

The M8 LiDAR sensor from Quanergy features an extended range up to 200 meters and a superior angular beam resolution of 0.033 degrees, enabling highly accurate and reliable detection of speeding violations even in busy, fast-paced highway environments. The sensor will be integrated exclusively into the VIGIE Double-Side solutions by PARIFEX, an extra-urban speed control system able to track, identify and classify different vehicles simultaneously on different lanes and identify the speeding one through a picture of the front and the rear of the vehicle.

PARIFEX offers the only approved LiDAR-based system for speed measurement and control in France. Building on a multi-year partnership, this project will accelerate the goal of achieving safer highway systems.

Cepton for Big Detroit OEM

Lidar solutions provider Cepton Technologies, Inc. (“Cepton”) announced that it has secured an ADAS lidar series production award at a leading, Detroit-based global automotive OEM (“Detroit-based OEM”), which is the industry’s largest award to-date [1]. This represents a landmark milestone both for the lidar industry as well as for Silicon Valley-based Cepton, which celebrates its five-year anniversary this month.

The Detroit-based OEM is expected to deploy Cepton lidars in its next generation of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) across multiple vehicle classes and models – not just luxury cars. This marks the potential for an industry-first, mass-market adoption of lidar technology for automotive ADAS, with an anticipated deployment in consumer vehicles starting in 2023.

Otonomo Tech for MBZ

 Otonomo Technologies, Ltd, the leading vehicle data platform provider, today announced the signature of an agreement with Mercedes-Benz Connectivity Services, a subsidiary of Mercedes-Benz AG. Otonomo will make available fleet data across 25 countries throughout Europe to fleet management companies and operators, such as delivery companies, service providers, car rental companies and others, so that they can gain instant access to connected vehicle data and improve their productivity and reduce expenses.

Powering Fleet Optimization with High Quality, Rich Data Marked by its High Frequency, and Low Latency

Otonomo Vehicle Data Platform cleanses, harmonizes, and secures vehicle data and makes it readily accessible through Otonomo’s straightforward API and user-friendly platform.

Mercedes-Benz passenger cars and light commercial vehicles employ multiple vehicular sensors, processors, and high-speed data communication frameworks to deliver comprehensive vehicle data. The dozens of vehicle attributes provided include, but are not limited to position data, maintenance data, vehicle status, warnings, ignition state, fuel level, tires, door and window status, and electric and hybrid parameters. Thereby, data protection is always given the highest priority between Mercedes-Benz Connectivity Services GmbH and Otonomo by the implementation of certain mechanisms and processes to protect the customer’s privacy.

Taking fleet performance to the next level

Fleets can utilize the Otonomo vehicle data to perform the following:

  • Track the location of fleet vehicles in real time to optimize routes and save fuel expenses
  • Maintain automated logbooks to provide effortless reporting and ensure compliance
  • Monitor vehicle health in real time to prevent vehicle breakdown
  • Keep track of vehicle health to increase safety
  • Trace excessive vehicle idling to cut fuel and maintenance costs
  • Optimize service times and enabling predictive maintenance
  • Calculate optimal defleeting
  • Fuelling and charging management to reduce costs and fight fraud and theft
  • EV route planning to reduce range anxiety
  • Monitor vehicle usage to detect theft or unauthorized vehicle use
  • And much more

Hitachi Astemo  & Light

Hitachi Astemo Americas, Inc., and Light, a leading provider of depth perception for vehicles, have begun “proof of concept” development of a forward-facing perception system for use with advanced driver assistance systems.

The two companies will begin to field test the new multi-view, camera-based sensing technology later this month. Light’s Clarity™ systems have better range, detail and accuracy at distance than existing sensor solutions and integrate seamlessly into Hitachi Astemo’s advanced vehicle assistance systems (ADAS) to work directly with other ADAS and ECU (engine control unit) applications.

“We’re always excited to work on innovative solutions to improve vehicle safety,” said John Nunneley, senior vice president, Design Engineering, Hitachi Astemo Americas, Inc.  “Building upon our decades of experience and together with Light, we are looking to create the next generation of leading ADAS and autonomous driving solutions.”

Clarity is an industry-first multi-view perception platform using cameras and designed to see any 3D structures in the road from 10 centimeters to 1,000 meters away – three times the range and 20x the detail of the best-in-class LiDAR.

Clarity outperforms existing sensing solutions by seamlessly combining visual information from cameras with measured depth so that longer distances and greater detail can be measured rather than only inferred by machine learning. Benefits include safer automatic emergency braking, evasive steering control for a wider variety of objects, adaptive suspension adjustment for road hazards such as potholes, and smoother adaptive cruise-control and lane-keeping systems.

“Light’s Clarity platform enables machines to see better than humans,” said Dave Grannan, Light’s co-founder and CEO. “It sees farther, and with greater detail, than other solutions available on the market. Aligning on this project with Hitachi Astemo, a company that is constantly seeking to improve and advance their technology, is an outstanding opportunity to prove the capabilities of the range and detail of the Clarity platform.”

Mitsubishi Partners with Wise Systems

u>Wise Systems today announced a partnership with Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation (MFTBC), under the umbrella of Daimler Trucks Asia (DTA), to offer the company’s AI-driven routing and dispatch software to MFTBC customers in Japan. The partnership extends Wise Systems’ reach to the commercial vehicle industry in Japan, one of the busiest last-mile markets in the world.

From the fourth quarter of 2021, Wise Systems will be offered as part of MFTBC’s digital solutions portfolio. The Wise Systems solution is not connected to any specific hardware and will be available for every vehicle brand.

Wise Systems’ system offers a comprehensive suite of products and solutions that automate the complex and dynamic decision-making process that fast-moving transportation operations require in today’s economy to improve fleet efficiency and customer experience. With the partnership, Wise Systems’ AI-enabled offerings will be offered as part of MFTBC’s digital solutions portfolio. One of Asia’s leading commercial vehicle manufacturers, MFTBC manufactures a range of commercial vehicles including light, medium, and heavy-duty trucks and buses, and industrial engines for over 170 markets worldwide.

Customers using Wise Systems have seen significant, fleet-wide efficiencies, including up to 15 percent fewer miles, an 80 percent reduction in late deliveries, and fleet utilization increases of 20 percent. Wise Systems’ real-time, fully automated system is powering delivery and service operations for a wide variety of multi-billion dollar global enterprises, including Anheuser-Busch and Lyft, and other market leaders across food, beverage, parcel, courier, field service and other industries.

The Town of Cary Upgrades with Applied Info

-The Town of Cary has selected transportation technology developer Applied Information to upgrade its traffic control system with the latest Internet of Things (IoT), Smart Cities Technology to improve safety, maximize responsiveness and efficiency of traffic for all users, and provide valuable data for future applications and transportation projects.

The $2 million project is the result of a matched federal grant between the U.S. Department of Transportation and Town of Cary, and is the first of its kind in North Carolina. It will provide IoT connectivity and connected vehicle applications to traffic signals, school zone safety beacons, pedestrian crosswalks and railroad crossings. Opportunities will be available to improve upon existing emergency and public transportation vehicle preemption at signals with a GPS-based system, offering greater distance and dynamic reactivity. The Town’s traffic engineers will also be able to monitor and control the technology from their connected devices.

In addition to the safety and planning benefits associated with the new technology, citizens have the option to use the TravelSafely smartphone app to be automatically connected with the infrastructure and other users. This connectivity provides for interaction between drivers and traffic control devices delivering an extra layer of awareness and improved safety at intersections, in school zones and areas where vulnerable road users are present. TravelSafely will alert drivers if they are about to run a red light or are in potential conflict with a pedestrian or cyclist to inform them about where they are and to adjust their actions to be safer.

The connectivity for the project is LTE cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X Network). This enables vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists to use their smart phones to take advantage of its safety applications while on the streets. The C-V2X Network technology enables emergency vehicles to communicate with multiple traffic signals in the direction of travel and change the light to green or hold the light green. Traffic in front of the emergency vehicle is kept moving while oncoming and cross-traffic is brought safely to a halt. Deployments in other municipalities indicate a time savings of about 10 seconds or more per light using the technology.

The Town will upgrade a total of 205 traffic signals, 100 school safety zone beacons, 15 crosswalks, its fire apparatus, transit buses and at-grade rail crossings. ALS of North Carolina is the prime contractor; Applied Information is the technology provider along with Temple, Inc.

About Applied Information

Applied Information is the industry-leading developer of Smart Cities, connected vehicle, and intelligent transportation system (ITS) solutions designed to save lives, improve traffic, drive commerce, and help the environment. Applied Information’s Glance Smart City Supervisory platform enables cities to manage all their traffic and ITS assets on one web-based application. Key product areas are smart traffic signals, school zone flashing beacons, emergency vehicle preemption, transit, and freight priority and ITS systems. AI’s free TravelSafely™ smartphone app connects drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians, and the transportation infrastructure for a safer mobility experience.

MCA Connect Wins MSUS Award

MCA Connect, a manufacturing business consultancy and Microsoft Dynamics Gold Partner, is proud to announce it has won the 2021 Microsoft US (MSUS) Partner Award for Automotive.

Designed to complement the Microsoft Partner of the Year program, the annual MSUS Partner Awards focus on US-specific partner impact. MCA Connect won this award by demonstrating leadership in the automotive industry for customer impact, solution innovation, deployment, and exceptional use of Microsoft technologies.

“We’re honored to win the MSUS Partner Award for Automotive,” said Claude Watson, Chief Executive Officer of MCA Connect. “This award highlights our commitment to demonstrating excellence, innovation, and deep expertise in the automotive industry. In 2020, we pivoted to become a true manufacturing consultancy – with automotive manufacturing as a top focus – and we look forward to helping our clients transform their business.”

MCA Connect’s MANUFACTURINGconnect for Auto is one way the company helps auto suppliers do just that. The solution enables suppliers to gain “quick wins” with their technology implementation thanks to its ease of deployment and quick time to pay back. Tier 1 auto supplier Litens Automotive recently leveraged MANUFACTURINGconnect for Auto Bid Response Management for a clearer, more distinct process for managing leads and opportunities.

“The solution was a game-changer for Litens and put us on a straight path to success,” said Litens’ Global Director. “Previously, we relied on in-house knowledge of leads and opportunities, and MANUFACTURINGconnect put industry intelligence behind us.”

Microsoft will recognize MCA Connect and other MSUS Partner Award winners at its virtual Inspire conference. Previous MCA Connect honors include Worldwide Dynamics ERP Partner of the Year, Worldwide Dynamics CRM Partner of the Year, Worldwide Dynamics Manufacturing Partner of the Year, US Power BI Partner of the Year, and Dynamics Inner Circle.