The company launnched QNX® Software Development Platform (SDP) 8.0.
Stellantis Virtual Engineering Workbench
Global automaker Stellantis N.V. led the creation of the world’s first virtual cockpit platform as part of its Stellantis Virtual Engineering Workbench (VEW) enabling the delivery of infotainment tech to customers 100 times faster than previous processes. The new platform uses the QNX® Hypervisor in the cloud from BlackBerry, which is now on early access release via AWS Marketplace within the QNX Accelerate portfolio of cloud-based tools. Stellantis can now create realistic virtual versions of car controls and systems, making them behave just like they would in a real car, but without needing to change the main software that runs them, taking what used to take months to be achieved down to 24 hours in some cases.
Accessing QNX Hypervisor via AWS Marketplace enables Stellantis to include a virtual cockpit high-performance computing (HPC) simulation into a cloud environment. This industry-first platform for mixed-criticality and multi-OS embedded application development includes QNX Hypervisor Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) and industry-standard hardware interfaces as defined in the VirtIO standard Trout v1.2. With tools such as virtualization of graphics, audio, and touchscreen/mouse/keyboard inputs, the solution offers little to no difference between running QNX Hypervisor-based systems in the cloud versus on real hardware.
Software is a key building block for Stellantis to deliver clean, safe and affordable mobility, as outlined in the Dare Forward 2030 strategic plan, and the driving force behind the AI-powered STLA Brain, STLA SmartCockpit and STLA AutoDrive technology platforms. In 2022, Stellantis selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider for vehicle platforms and the companies began work on Stellantis’ purpose-built, in-house VEW.
Taking a software-driven approach and deploying the QNX Hypervisor in the cloud, Stellantis can accelerate customer feedback sessions, and with minimal effort, replicate the cockpit experience of a particular brand and vehicle, and make changes in real time to optimize the experience for the driver. This real-time feedback, underpinned by low-latency access to the cloud, allows Stellantis to solicit valuable feedback from its customer and developer base to build future infotainment features and applications.
“Software is becoming increasingly crucial in vehicles, leading us to innovate in how we develop and validate it,” said Yves Bonnefont, Chief Software Officer at Stellantis. “With our virtual cockpit, we’re revolutionizing not just our approach, but also that of our suppliers and partners in the industry. Essentially, we’re able to get closer to our customer’s needs through this technology with faster development cycles, faster feedback loops, and quicker delivery of the technology they use and love. It’s a leap towards customer-first innovation and efficiency in the automotive world.”
“We’re delighted to introduce early access availability of our trusted QNX Hypervisor platform in the cloud, leveraging the vendor and platform-neutral VirtIO standard that QNX has long-supported for its importance in creating a true-to-life virtual development environment for embedded software,” said Mattias Eriksson, President, BlackBerry IoT. “Working with Stellantis to launch the world’s first commercial hypervisor in the AWS cloud helps to reduce complexity, accelerate innovation and cut costs on in-car software development throughout the entire product lifecycle.”
“Software virtualization and abstraction in the cloud is vital to accelerating development and maintaining feature delivery on-pace with consumer demand,” said Wendy Bauer, Vice President and General Manager, Automotive and Manufacturing, AWS. “With BlackBerry’s QNX Hypervisor on AWS Marketplace, Stellantis can easily harness the power of the cloud to reimagine research and development processes, architect more insightful ways to solicit and integrate feedback, and deliver functions faster than before that delight drivers and further the industry.”
Standard VirtIO interfaces are also used by a suite of automotive partners to scale their offerings across OEMs and enable plug-and-play across the OEM landscape. Recognizing the benefits, AWS fully supports the VirtIO industry standard for cloud simulation of cockpit HPCs.
BlackBerry QNX launched QNX Accelerate in January 2023 with its portfolio initially featuring QNX® Neutrino® RTOS 7.1 and the QNX® OS for Safety 2.2.3, each provided as Amazon Machine Images allowing QNX customers to run a QNX OS natively on AWS cloud hardware. The early access release of QNX Hypervisor in the cloud is available now and general availability will be announced later in 2024.
A non-branded demonstration of the technology is available at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) from January 9 – 12, 2024, at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Visit BlackBerry at Booth #4224 in the West Hall.
Foxconn Mobility in Harmony Powered by BlackBerry
Mobility in Harmony (MIH) Consortium, a Hon Hai Technology Group (Foxconn) initiative, today announced that it has selected BlackBerry Limited (NYSE: BB; TSX: BB) and the BlackBerry IVY® platform to power its next generation Project X, and future passenger and commercial vehicle reference platforms. This collaboration builds on the earlier partnership established between MIH and BlackBerry in July 2023.
Deploying IVY™ in its vehicle digital cockpit will help MIH’s vehicles with a rich suite of applications for real time monitoring of the vehicle’s health and performance. This will offer fleet operators and drivers intuitive insights for effectively managing operations, improving driver safety, lowering business risk and optimizing asset utilization.
“We are extremely excited by this collaboration with BlackBerry IVY as it will provide our electric vehicle platform with scale and the ability to accelerate development and innovation for EV and mobility marketplaces. IVY gives us the middleware foundation to realize our vision of an open ecosystem where we can continuously provide new experiences and services over the lifecycle of the vehicle. IVY allows us to offer ‘out of the box’ fleet management capabilities in our vehicles, powered by AI-generated fleet insights. These solutions extend well beyond traditional telematics data, eliminate the need for unreliable and costly companion devices and increase vehicles’ operational efficiency in a very cost-effective manner,” said Jack Cheng, CEO at MIH.
Vito Giallorenzo, SVP and General Manager, BlackBerry IVY, commented, “We are very pleased that MIH has selected BlackBerry IVY platform to power its electric vehicle platform. This announcement is the continuation of a valued collaboration with MIH that started with our core QNX solution for their foundational software and is now extending to leveraging IVY to enable their connected services ecosystem. We look forward to working with the MIH consortium and ecosystem to add rich services to the MIH platform and the broader EV and mobility marketplace.”
The MIH platform, powered by BlackBerry IVY, will be demonstrated at the MIH (LVCC West, #7216) and BlackBerry (LVCC West, #4224) booths at the 2024 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). On display, visitors will see:
- Vehicle Health Monitoring: Helps ensure each vehicle operates at its best condition, with diagnostics that predict, detect, and notify any maintenance needs.
- Range/SOC (State of Charge)/SOH (State of Health) Estimation: Helps provide drivers and fleet operators with accurate battery and range information, enabling better routing optimization, energy management, and longer vehicle life.
- Driver Scoring: Evaluates driving behaviors and patterns to encourage safer driving habits and reduce the fleet operator’s risk and costs.
- Vehicle Security Analysis: Utilizes advanced cybersecurity measures to assess vehicle cybersecurity strength, protect against threats, and ensure the integrity of vehicle operations.
BlackBerry Launches QNX Sound
BlackBerry Limited (NYSE: BB; TSX: BB) announced the launch of QNX® Sound, an innovative development platform that decouples audio and acoustics software from the vehicle hardware to give audio designers and engineers complete creative freedom to deliver new and exciting in-vehicle sound experiences.
QNX Sound enables automakers to consolidate all audio and acoustic functions seamlessly and cost-effectively within the main software stack of the software-defined vehicle architecture, using pre-integrated and pre-tested core technologies. This includes a complete out-of-the-box library of automotive acoustics functional modules for telephony, safety alerting, noise reduction, sound enhancement, media playback, etc. The software foundation not only provides more control over quality and functionality of these services, but it also includes advanced tuning tools with a graphical programming interface that unlocks endless signal processing creativity. For the first time, this offers an entirely software-driven foundation for automakers to explore new audio-based services and collaborations with technology companies and multimedia content providers to bring new, value-add features into the vehicle, opening new opportunities to create new revenue streams from the activation of optional features – or to upgrades from base audio to a branded premium level – as on-demand or subscription services.
“In the software-defined vehicle age, audio becomes a new playing field for innovation and differentiation,” said John Wall, Senior Vice President, and Head of QNX at BlackBerry. “QNX Sound is the ultimate digital audio platform for the automotive industry and the most comprehensive foundation available for innovation. Through it, we enable automakers to explore new business opportunities and exciting collaborations that will truly appeal to and excite the end user.”
QNX Sound is the only software-defined audio and acoustics solution for the automotive industry that has been fully tested in production and pre-integrated in next generation System on Chip (SoCs). The platform is pre-integrated with BlackBerry QNX® Real Time Operating System (RTOS) and QNX® Hypervisor and includes an audio extension mechanism that allows 3rd party signal processing suppliers to compile and deploy their own c-code algorithms. Furthermore, it is pre-tested with leading measurement and simulation equipment suppliers and industry open standards, like VirtIO to support sound design, tuning and signal flow design capabilities for exciting new features both in the cloud and, eventually, on hardware targets.
Hendrik Hermann, Vice President Automotive at Dirac, shares his enthusiasm for revolutionizing car audio, saying: “At Dirac, our passion is to unlock the untapped potential in every audio system, particularly in cars, where great sound is a vital part of the experience. Working hand in hand with the team at BlackBerry QNX, we’ve integrated a fully scalable Dirac plug-in featuring all our technologies that seamlessly integrate with the QNX Sound platform.
BlackBerry Releases QNX SDP
BlackBerry Limited (NYSE: BB; TSX: BB) today announced general availability of its new QNX® Software Development Platform (SDP) 8.0. Combined with the next generation QNX® OS 8.0, the platform delivers a scalable, high-performance real-time operating system available for today’s embedded computing industry.
The fifth generation QNX SDP 8.0 architecture builds on decades of development and a field-proven safe and secure platform, while maintaining its POSIX API to provide an instantly productive environment for both QNX® and Linux® developers. QNX SDP 8.0 adds support for ARM v9 and GCC 12, and delivers near-linear performance scaling with CPU core counts, enabling developers to fully realize the power and opportunities of increasingly advanced processors for generations to come.
The new platform extends the QNX Tool Suite with support for Microsoft Visual Studio Code to complement the Eclipse-based Momentics Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and new command line tools including over 200 Unix utilities. It also provides cloud-enabled OS support for development. Furthermore, QNX OS 8.0, with its advanced microkernel architecture, is designed to support emerging CPU architectures such as RISC-V.
“QNX SDP 8.0 provides the trusted foundation upon which our customers can truly future-proof their products for many years to come,” said John Wall, Senior Vice President and Head of QNX at BlackBerry. “It fundamentally enables embedded software design to support safe, secure and reliable systems in a way that fully harnesses the benefits of CPU advancements way into the future.”
“As a premium smart mobility technology brand, we’re keen to align with the very best development technologies that will future-proof our investment in world-class design, engineering and innovation,” said Jun Tao, Software Senior Director at ZEEKR Intelligent Technology. “Our early access experience with QNX SDP 8.0 has been incredibly positive, enabling us to integrate all areas of development within a single high performance compute environment that sets our vehicle software advancements up for success, today and into the future.”
QNX SDP 8.0 lays the foundation for the entire line of next generation BlackBerry® QNX® portfolio products, including QNX® OS for Safety, QNX® Hypervisor and QNX® Hypervisor for Safety. Customers can seamlessly migrate between the platforms to best suit their specific application requirements.