In connected car news are GENIVI/COVESA, Denso, Renesas, Ford, MiX Telematics, BrainChip, Movandi, KPIT and indie Semiconductor.GENIVI Now COVESA
Throughout its 12 years as a global, open standards organization, the Alliance continuously evolved and expanded its scope, developing a proven track record of creating standards that delivered value for its members and spurred innovation in the industry.
Brandmotion LLD & DENSO Partner for V2X
Brandmotion, LLC announced a collaboration with DENSO Products and Services Americas, Inc. based in Long Beach, California to offer a one stop service to cities seeking to equip vehicles with advanced Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technology. DENSO is a leading global mobility supplier and Brandmotion is the recognized leader in vehicle integration for V2X deployments. By combining forces, the two companies are offering cities and agencies an easy path to vehicle integration for V2X deployment testing.
V2X technology has been proposed by the USDOT as the best way to address the chronic death toll on America’s roadways, with nearly 37,000 lives lost and a record 6,721 pedestrians killed at intersections in 2020. Leading city managers and state transportation agencies are looking to deploy V2X technology regionally to reduce vehicle crashes and fatalities and improve pedestrian safety.
Up until now, many cities seeking to deploy the life-saving V2X technology have had to assemble the elements of a large vehicle deployment manually, developing specifications and coordinating multiple vendors to ensure a successful outcome and meaningful results. The DENSO-Brandmotion partnership simplifies the process of equipping vehicles for long term testing.
Brandmotion has served the Tampa Connected Vehicle (CV) Pilot for 5 years and provided responsive professional grade automotive integration and service capability. DENSO is the On Board Unit (OBU) supplier to OEMs for Tampa’s CV Pilot Phase 4, bringing true “Tier 1” development capabilities to the project.
Bob Frey, Program Manager for the Tampa CV Pilot said “Having worked with both companies to complete vehicle integration services for V2X deployments, our experience is that they bring complete high-quality solutions to our deployments and have excelled at helping us deploy transportation safety applications from concept to operating on the “street” on schedule. To me, that is the most important aspect of these safety projects, getting applications “out in the street” so the public benefits”.
The partnership between DENSO and Brandmotion will provide transportation agencies with the following vehicle-related deployment services:
- DENSO On Board Unit (OBU) platform (Hercules) has the ability to run and process applications that support both Cellular V2X (C-V2X) communications and Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) in an automotive environment (while DSRC is still permitted by the United State Federal Communication Commission (FCC)).
- Standard set of applications, including Blindspot/Lane Change Warning, Electronic Emergency Brake Light, Forward Crash Warning, Intersection Movement Assist, Red Light Violation Warning, and Traffic Signal Priority
- Custom application development for specific agency application goals
- Thorough vehicle-specific installation planning, vehicle system design and validation
- From small to large-scale installation and tech support
Renesas SoCs
Renesas Electronics Corporation, a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, today unveiled an innovative automotive gateway solution with R-Car S4 system on chips (SoCs) and power management ICs (PMICs) for next-generation vehicle computers, communication gateways, domain servers and application servers. Renesas’ new solution meets the automotive industry’s high demands for high performance, high-speed networking, high security and high functional safety levels that are required as E/E architectures evolve into domains and zones. The solution also dramatically improves development efficiency by enabling software reusability and including the new best-in-class PMICs designed to work seamlessly with the R-Car S4.
“As the vehicle architectures evolve, safe connection to cloud services and secure management with in-vehicle control systems are major challenges,” said Takeshi Kataoka, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Automotive Solution Business Unit at Renesas. “As an automotive market leader, we have addressed these challenges with our new R-Car S4 solution, and global OEMs have already begun to design next-generation systems with this solution.”
The Renesas R-Car S4 is one of the first products in Renesas’ 4th-generation R-Car Family. It includes multiple Arm® Cortex® A55, Cortex R52 and is the first to implement an RH850 MCU for control domain management. R-Car S4 SoCs offer a huge number of automotive interfaces such as 16x CAN FD, 16x LIN, 8x SENT, 1x FlexRay, 4x PCIe V4.0 and also a high-bandwidth 3 x 2.5Gbit Ethernet Switch to enable rich communication and connectivity options both inside and outside of the vehicle.
The R-Car S4 solution allows designers to re-use up to 88 percent of software code developed for 3rd generation R-Car SoC and RH850 MCU applications. The software package supports R-Car S4 application development including the real-time cores with various drivers and basic software such as Linux BSP and hypervisors. In addition, a virtual platform (VPF) is available from a partner company, enabling early software development and evaluation to reduce design time and cost.
The new PMICs for R-Car provide advanced power modes that support extremely low power operation. The RAA271041 PMIC accepts the vehicle’s 12V supply and supports wide operation for load dump and cold cranking pulses while providing the first-stage regulation. The RAA271005 is a Safe 11-channel PMIC that takes the RAA271041’s output and steps it down further to the various supply voltages needed by R-Car S4 and its peripherals such as LPDDR4x memory. The RAA271041 and RAA271005 PMICs provide a complete power solution from vehicle battery down to system voltage.
Renesas will provide the evaluation boards as a Winning Combination solution featuring the R-Car S4 device, the RAA271041 and RAA271005 PMICs, and a Renesas timing IC (Autoclock RC2121x). This pre-tested solution will reduce risk in the board design and will further shorten the development cycle.
Key Features of the R-Car S4 SoCs
- Eight 1.2 GHz Cortex A55 cores, one 1.0 GHz Cortex® R52 dual core (lock-step) and two 400 MHz RH850 G4MH dual cores (lock-step) deliver up to 27 KDMIPS application performance plus greater than 5.3 K DMIPS real-time performance
- Abundant automotive interfaces including 16x CAN FD, 16x LIN, 8x SENT, 1x FlexRay, and 4x PCIe V4.0 allow a wide range of connectivity inside the vehicle
- Integrated Ethernet TSN switch offers bandwidth of 3 x 2.5 Gbps to deliver fast and low-latency communication in the vehicle backbone and to the outside world. This switch is fully validated by Spirent’s TSN conformance test solutions running on their Automotive C1 test system.
- Incorporated 8MB SRAM to execute code on the RH850 G4MH core with low latency
- Multiple hardware security modules (HSMs) provide enhanced security protection against cyber attacks
- R-Car S4 is compliant to ISO-26262 and supports functional safety according to ASIL B and ASIL D
- 23mm square (R-Car S4) and 19mm square (R-Car S4N) FCBGA packages
Key Features of the PMICs for R-Car
- Programmability enables easy adaption to support R-Car S4 and future R-Car SOCs
- RAA271041 and RAA271005 provide advanced power control to support extremely low power operation for always-on, DeepSTOP, cyclic-run, and suspend-to-ram modes.
- RAA271041 is a pre-regulator that offers two 42V synchronous controllers, one buck and one boost. The device’s boost stage supports the buck stage when the battery voltage drops during cranking transients as low as 2.5V.
- RAA271041 and RAA271005 were developed per ISO-26262 and are capable of supporting system safety requirements up to ASIL D.
- Integrated 12-bit SAR ADC monitors external signals and eliminates an external ADC
- Dynamic Voltage Frequency Scaling changes output voltage to save power
- Optional spread-spectrum clocking mitigates EMI
- Built-in support for R-Car S4 activation streamlines SoC self-test procedures
Apple & Ansys RF Safety
Apple collaborated with Ansys to launch the first-of-its-kind RF safety testing simulation solution for Apple’s MagSafe module technology developers. The novel technology eliminates the need for physical prototypes and expensive RF safety certification software —reducing costs while simultaneously accelerating the certification process for developers.
MagSafe chargers use magnets in newer iPhone models to connect to accessories that also have magnets built inside, including chargers, cases and docks. Apple’s MFi Program offers developers the technical specifications and resources for creating MagSafe accessories that communicate with Apple devices using MFi technologies and components. Ansys’ extensive simulation expertise is now available to MagSafe module partners in the MFi Program, helping to ensure developers can design and market safe and reliable products more quickly.
Empowering developers with streamlined certification processes is critical to expanding Apple offerings and accessories available to Apple consumers. Ansys provides extensive simulation expertise and the most proven and trusted RF simulation in the world. The push-button functionality enables a simple and intuitive developer experience and greatly reduces cost and time to market.
“This is a scalable, cloud-based solution that leverages Ansys’ gold-standard HFSS electromagnetic solver to support developers with streamlined certification for SAR, peak average e-file and magnetic field distribution,” said Shane Emswiler, senior vice president of products at Ansys. “The solution uses a simple, intuitive interface and automation to reduce complexity and speed results, delivering detailed feedback at every step of the process and standards-conforming, SAR certified data reports for FCC and ICN submissions.”
MiX Telematics Partners with Ford Pro
MiX Telematics , a leading global provider of connected fleet and mobile asset management solutions, is collaborating with Ford Pro Intelligence to provide MiX North America customers that operate Ford vehicles with richer data sets to enable better-informed decisions regarding safety, efficiency, and compliance. In the long-term, it will also potentially eliminate the need for the installation of aftermarket hardware in vehicles.
The OEM collaboration with Ford Pro aims to further optimize the MiX Telematics customer experience by lowering capital costs, with no need to purchase and install separate hardware, enabling faster implementation of telematics software and reducing support costs. Separate within Ford Motor Company, Ford Pro delivers new levels of productivity for business and government customers via work-ready products and services, with Ford Pro Intelligence providing digital services, with distinct features integrated in Ford vehicles that enable customers to better manage and maintain their fleets.
BrainChip Presents
BrainChip Holdings Ltd (ASX: BRN), (OTCQX: BRCHF), a leading provider of ultra-low power high performance artificial intelligence technology, today announced that Rob Telson, VP of Worldwide Sales and Marketing, will be a presenter at the Auto Edge Summit as part of Edge Computing World, October 13 at 1:25 p.m. PDT. Afterwards, Anil Mankar joins executives from Denso and Toyota on a panel discussion on Edge in Automotive at 1:55 p.m.
Telson’s presentation, “Intelligent AI Everywhere: Smart Transportation,” will provide information about how to easily apply efficient AI in smart transportation edge devices by implementing BrainChip’s Akida™ neural networking processor IP into a system on a chip or as standalone silicon. Akida leverages advanced neuromorphic computing as the engine to solve critical problems such as privacy, security, latency, low power requirements, with key features such as one-shot learning and computing on the device with no dependency on the cloud. These capabilities satisfy next-generation demands by achieving efficient, effective and easy AI functionality.
“Sensors at the edge require real-time computation, and managing both ultra-low power and latency requirements with traditional machine learning is extremely difficult when it comes to empowering smart intelligent edge sensors,” said Telson. “The Akida processor provides OEMs and car makers with a cost-effective and robust ability to perform real-time, in-vehicle preventative care by running noise and vibration analysis. I’m looking forward to sharing how BrainChip’s Akida makes intelligent AI to the edge easy at both my panel discussion and the roundtable with Denso and Toyota.”
BrainChip’s Akida™ is a revolutionary advanced neural networking processor that brings Artificial Intelligence to the Edge in a way that existing technologies are not capable. Akida is high-performance, small, ultra-low power and enables a wide array of edge capabilities. The Akida (NSoC) and intellectual property can be used in applications, including Smart Home, Smart Health, Smart City and Smart Transportation. These applications include, but are not limited to, home automation and remote controls, industrial IoT, robotics, security cameras, sensors, unmanned aircraft, autonomous vehicles, medical instruments, object detection, sound detection, odor and taste detection, gesture control and cybersecurity.
Taking place from October 12-15, Edge Computing World is the premier edge computing event. The virtual event will bring together more than 4,000 end users, ecosystem, and developers with unique learning and networking experiences to drive forward the adoption of edge computing. The event is free of charge.
Movandi 5G Tested in Moving Vehicles
Movandi, a leader in new 5G millimeter-wave (mmWave) technology, announced the test drive results showing how 5G mmWave can deliver exceptional performance in a moving automobile when Movandi BeamXR powered smart repeater with Movandi BeamX cloud software control, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are combined. This landmark test in a moving vehicle demonstrated the ability of these high frequencies and cloud intelligence to deliver high quality of service and multi-gigabit per second downlink speeds in difficult mobile environments. Download the complete whitepaper
“Our 5G mmWave BeamXR smart repeater solution augmented with the AI powered BeamX cloud software solution brings together all the key 5G technology breakthroughs to solve the challenges of 5G mmWave connectivity and obstacle penetration that are amplified in moving vehicles,” said Reza Rofougaran, CTO and co-founder of Movandi. “This landmark test redefines the mobile experience that has not been possible by any other 5G mmWave vendor, but also paves the road for endless possibilities, including the further expansion of 5G into fixed wireless access, 5G private networks, compute, XR, and indoor and enterprise applications.”
“Mobile vehicles including trains, buses and cars represent an important use case for millions of users worldwide,” said Joe Madden, founder of Mobile Experts. “In the mmWave spectrum, the auto glass and metal cage present difficult connectivity and penetration challenges. This test drive demonstrated the need and ability of vehicle based smart repeaters powered by cloud intelligence to solve these challenges cost-effectively.”
To perform the test, Movandi mounted a prototype millimeter-wave repeater behind the windshield in the car and measured downlink and uplink speeds on a smartphone with and without the repeater. It was conducted at speeds up to of 28 mph using Verizon’s 28-GHz Ultra Wideband network over a 3 mile (5 km) route along DeAnza Boulevard, one of the busiest corridors in Silicon Valley near Apple’s corporate headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.
Along the route, the car passed six gNBs and 24 switching points that seamlessly handed the signal off to each other. The switching and continuous high speed links were enabled by Movandi BeamX cloud intelligence that collects GPS, speed and environmental intelligence from moving vehicles in real-time and dynamically processes this data to establish and switch to the optimal gNB signal. With the repeater turned off, downlink speeds averaged 114.3 Mbps, and varied from 87 Mbps at 130 meters to 177 Mbps at 90 meters. Performance was significantly affected by the location where a user held the phone, and it periodically switched back to sub-6 5G or 4G LTE when communication was not possible using the millimeter-wave network.
With the Movandi BeamXR powered smart repeater turned on, downlink speeds averaged 1.6 Gbps and 151.2 meters with a maximum downlink speed of 2.7 Gbps at 250 meters. Performance remained strong throughout the route regardless of where the smartphone was held in the car. Even videoconferencing calls with Blue Jeans, Zoom and Cisco Webex were maintained seamlessly without interruptions, which was not possible without the smart repeaters. The signal consistently remained in the millimeter-wave network, never resorting to the lower 4G LTE frequencies.
The test showed that Movandi BeamXR powered smart repeaters significantly enhanced 5G performance 19X compared to national averages and 14X without repeaters. This type of performance will be necessary for broad 5G adaption and many application use cases including trains, buses, automobiles, entertainment and interactive AR / VR and business real-time applications – telemedicine, customer support and video conferencing.
In the future, the innovative purpose-built Movandi 5G mmWave technology can be easily integrated within the structure of cars, buses, trains, and trucks, similar to today’s 4G or satellite radios. Movandi 5G mmWave powered smart repeaters with cloud control deliver unmatched performance, cost and size advantages across challenging high frequency 5G millimeter waves, unlocking the potential of 5G and other multi-gigabit communication applications.
Sheeva.AI and Hagiwara
Sheeva.AI announced it has closed a strategic round, led by Hagiwara Electronics Co., Ltd. of Japan, and the Aggarwal Family of the Sterling Group, to fuel the adoption of its connected vehicle technology and Open API platform for automation of location-based services and in-car payments. These investments build on the existing, long-term collaboration with Hagiwara America and the Aggarwal Family in Asia and open the path for closer collaboration with automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers in North America, Europe, and APAC.
Takeshi Soejima, President of Hagiwara Electronics Co., Ltd., said, “In North America, the automobile industry is undergoing major changes, and new industries, such as MaaS, are emerging. This makes it one of the most important strategic regions for Hagiwara Electric as we aim for global growth. Collaboration with Sheeva.AI is very important for the realization of our strategy.”
Anish Agarwal of the Sterling Group, added, “We immediately saw the potential of Sheeva.AI’s API platform for location-enabled vehicle features and services. Our collaboration ultimately led to investment and to the launch of a subsidiary in India to accelerate growth throughout South and Southeast Asia.”
The core differentiator of Sheeva.AI’s technology is its patented location algorithm, enabling the platform to determine the vehicle’s real-time geolocation within 2-meter accuracy (5X better than smartphones). This is accurate enough to identify the car’s location at a gas pump, parking space, charging station, toll lane, etc. This precision enables the platform to automate last-mile services, meaning fewer manual steps for the driver and more engagement for the service providers.
Evgeny Klochikhin, CEO and Founder of Sheeva.AI, said, “We are excited to have Hagiwara Electric Co. Ltd, and the Aggarwal Family lend their collective deep automotive expertise to our team. Their investments will accelerate our existing work with automotive OEMs, energy companies, Departments of Transportation, and beyond, driving our growth to millions of vehicles by the end of 2022.”
Evgeny added, “Look, most in-vehicle platforms are overly complex, require you to learn new tech and, ultimately, are very vehicle focused. Our focus is on the driver. We enable auto manufacturers and merchants to automate services, such as fueling, curbside pickup and parking, for the driver. This creates a better driving experience with a more engaged customer.”
indie Semi for ADAS
-indie Semiconductor, Inc. (Nasdaq: INDI), an Autotech solutions innovator, has created a dedicated business unit focused exclusively on high quality perception-enabled, vision processing solutions to address the majority of usage cases for advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS)-enabled vehicles. Ramesh Singh, an industry veteran, is leading indie’s new VisionQ business unit, which is supported by an exceptional team that together has already successfully brought millions of silicon, software and system solutions to the vision processing market over the last two decades. The group’s combined development capabilities, expertise in building large scale vision businesses and vast relationships worldwide position indie to deliver best-in-class sensing platforms for ADAS applications.
Enabling complex camera solutions with artificial intelligence (AI) functions are rapidly being adopted by major Tier 1s and OEMs as a way of bringing intelligence to solve difficult sensing problems. As the requirements for these compute functions increase, the integration within the power profile and the form-factor becomes even more challenging. Integrating the AI algorithms and sensing functions into the numerous automotive cameras requires intelligent edge-compute vision processing in practically every product to solve the varying levels of computational processing. indie believes ADAS solutions that integrate the perception stack (by fusing advanced sensing algorithms across vision, radar and LiDAR) will drive adoption of safety features being mandated globally.
Iteris Partners with NHSP
Iteris, Inc. (NASDAQ: ITI), the global leader in smart mobility infrastructure management, today announced a new and expanded contract with the New Hampshire Department of Safety, Division of State Police (NHSP) for Iteris’ commercial vehicle operations (CVO) software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions.
Under the terms of the multi-year SaaS contract, Iteris will extend NHSP’s use of Iteris Inspect™ for an additional five years and provide its CVIEW-Plus™ data services to support the state’s goals of obtaining compliance with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) Innovative Technology Deployment (ITD) program, improving goods movement, and enhancing safety for truck drivers, law enforcement and roadside inspectors.
Iteris Inspect, powered by CVIEW-Plus data services, aggregates and automates the roadside inspection process, reducing the time to conduct commercial vehicle inspections by up to 50%. Less time roadside improves safety for both drivers and enforcement personnel. CVIEW-Plus data services further automate commercial vehicle selection processes, allowing compliant carriers to bypass weigh stations and enforcement personnel to focus on driver and carrier education aimed at reducing defects, benefitting the safety and mobility of the broader transportation network.
In addition to less time off the road for carriers and drivers, Inspect facilitates compliance with FMCSA and Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance regulations, including electronic logging.
Iteris’ suite of CVO SaaS solutions is a key component of its ClearMobility™ Platform – the world’s most complete solution to continuously monitor, visualize and optimize mobility infrastructure. ClearMobility applies cloud computing, artificial intelligence, advanced sensors, advisory services and managed services to help ensure roads are safe, travel is efficient, and communities thrive.
KPIT Invests in Middleware
KPIT Technologies Ltd, a leading independent software development and integration partner to the automotive and mobility industry, announced that it would make significant investments with a specific focus on middleware solutions with a vision to accelerate clients’ transformation to software-defined vehicles across both passenger and commercial vehicle segments.
Vehicle customer experience is deeply software-driven. There is an increasing need for hardware-software separation and for the OEMs to develop, deploy and update software solutions faster over the entire vehicle lifecycle.
OEMs are moving towards a central-compute architecture quicker than one would have anticipated. The automotive ecosystem is accelerating its efforts to build a robust and dependable software platform that can host varied domains such as Autonomous Driving/ADAS, Digital Cockpit, Electric Powertrain, and Body Control Module.
KPIT intends to develop and enhance technologies and infrastructure to help OEMs and Tier 1s in this mega transformation of vehicle architecture. It will address the emerging challenges through solutions in software integration, architecture consulting, platform component integration, integrated tooling, and CI/CT/CD* infrastructure to help OEMs accelerate the stitching of diverse components together.
The development process of how software is written, tested, and deployed in vehicles will significantly change and will involve globally distributed teams and newer safety standards on cybersecurity and autonomous vehicle safety. Investments will continue to be boosted in near team to develop specific solutions and capabilities to meet these changing needs.
KPIT today offers a broad range of technical solutions and has rich experience in supporting several production programs for its mobility clients. KPIT’s new investments in full-service capability, platforms, tools, and accelerators, will complement its existing software integration capabilities across the domains of Autonomous Driving, Electric Powertrain, Connected Vehicle, Body Electronics, AUTOSAR, Diagnostics, and OTA. Additionally, KPIT is proactively working with its partners to develop an ecosystem and build integrated solutions to help OEMs and Tier 1s fast-track their transformation journey.
Commenting on this key milestone, Kishor Patil, CEO, KPIT Technologies, said, “The main objective for KPIT in creating this focus is to help our clients rapidly and seamlessly transition to central-compute architecture. Our platforms, tools, accelerators, and methodologies offer the speed, scale, and independence required by the OEMs. We are excited to partner with and contribute to the ecosystem to help advance this transition by at least a year.”