The technology in your car is changing rapidly, and is shaping the future of driving. From autonomous cars, to vehicle-to-vehicle communication, cars are going to be very different in the next few years.
Today’s automobile represents the most sophisticated technology owned by most consumers, and automakers continuously offer new high-tech content in their products. From the early stages planning, automakers design innovations into new vehicles, recognizing that technology provides many solutions to meet consumer needs.
Auto companies register many patents a year for their innovative, new vehicle technologies, and automakers employ a highly skilled workforce to design and build their products.
Tata Elxsi discusses global trends driving automotive innovations..
The global automotive market is moderately but steadily growing. Sales of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles are expected to grow from 78 million units in 2011 to more than 100 million units in 2018, globally. In a recent study, Gartner confirmed that electronics will be playing a major role in the advancement of automotive technology. Thus innovations in automotive electronics will be significant towards growth and development of the automotive industry.
Next generation Advanced Driver Assistant System (ADAS) — with ABS (Anti-lock breaking system) , airbag, brake control, steering control, engine control, cruise control, stop-and-go, autonomous parking, integrated navigation system (GPS and Gallileo) is all set to change the ecosystem of automobile by allowing increasing access to interconnectivity.
Multi modal HMI has taken over control of trivial functions like light control, air conditioning, power windows, engine starting, door opening, adjustable and heated seats providing ease of access and complete control of the car to the driver. Over the years, Voice and gesture will be maturing as a major tool for enabling interconnected devices to be integrated with the automotive system. Display technology will be fast improving and 3D features will be added to optimize driver utilization.
Infotainment is one of the key megatrends fueling the pervasiveness of microelectronics in cars. Consumers prefer to be connected and conveniently access their personal content anywhere, anytime, on all of their devices.
Tata Elxsi one of the leaders in the global automotive product engineering category has continually invested in driving solutions for the global market harnessing trends like electronic pervasiveness, connected computing in the car and multi-modal HMI.
Our latest innovations and solutions include:
- Infotainment: As infotainment systems within cars deliver more and more features, the way we interact with these systems needs to change, for ease-of-use and distraction free driving. We have developed concepts for next gen infotainment solutions that use multi-modal interactions such as touch, voice and gesture-based controls, coupled with an intuitive user interface to ensure distraction free driving. This is available on leading hardware platforms and operating systems, including Android.
- Driverless cars: We are developing an autonomous car framework that integrates cameras, sensors and vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications. This provides a range of Advanced Driver Assistance (ADAS) features such as collision warning, autonomous cruise control and advanced features such as autonomous valet parking, etc.
- Connected Car: We are working with leading OEMs to develop companion apps that can be accessed through the car infotainment system, or phones, tablets and other connected devices including wearables. This also extends to telematics solutions that leverage cloud computing to provide emergency services and routine diagnostics and preventive maintenance.
- Connected Car security: With increasing connectivity, the car is being exposed to risks of viruses or even hacking of key functions. We have developed a secure communication gateway prototype that is installed in the vehicle and ensures all communication within the car network and from the outside world is secured
Spansion® evolved the standard microcontroller aimed at rich human machine interfaces (HMI) in automotive dashboards….
Cars are constantly evolving and looking for new ways to provide more comfort, connectivity and driver assistance. The challenge in the past has been that that ASIL compliant microcontrollers have traditionally lacked the graphics processing and memory to reproduce video or remarkable graphics, and the large market of high-performance graphically enhanced SoCs have often been too costly in terms of price and/or certification challenges.
Taking into account the necessary changes needed in order to help microcontrollers solve the challenges of the industry, Spansion® evolved the standard microcontroller to support graphics. The latest member the Spansion Traveo microcontroller family is aimed at rich human machine interfaces (HMI) in automotive dashboards. For the first time, Spansion integrated its breakthrough HyperBus™ interface with its ARM® Cortex®-R5-based embedded Traveo MCU, enabling seamless connections with HyperBus memories, including Spansion HyperFlash™ memory, to provide customers design simplification and faster performance in automotive systems. For reference, Spansion HyperBus is a low pin-count interface that achieves significantly higher performance than both legacy parallel and SPI interfaces and enables a wide range of high-performance applications, such as automotive instrument clusters and ADAS.
The Traveo family also delivers state-of-the-art 2D and 3D graphics, which have been optimized to bring sophisticated and automotive specific graphics functions into the car without increased power and BOM requirements. As the first 3D-capable ARM Cortex-R5 cluster MCU, Spansion’s graphics engine provides greater memory savings, increased safety features and rich image capabilities, without the need for external video RAM. These, in turn, help manufacturers take advantage of lower overall system costs to proliferate the advanced driver experience previously reserved for luxury automotive brands.
Some of the latest car innovations we’ve found are some truly exciting …
Google’s self-driving car is not an innovation, rather an invention that can hold tremendous potential for the future
The development of autonomous driving technology is arguably one of the most revolutionary things that have happened in the auto industry in the last couple of decades. Many car makers, including Volvo, Audi, Nissan, Toyota, and GM, have been working on vehicles that can drive themselves, without the input of a human driver. But, the biggest advances in the autonomous car game have been made by Google, a company that has no previous experience in building cars, whatsoever. The tech giant has received permission to operate its self-driving cars in four U.S. states: Nevada, Florida, California, and Michigan.
V2V communications can help drivers avoid crashes on busy streets
Another major innovation that is bound to reshape the future of driving is vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication. This technology is supposed to help drivers get accurate information on weather conditions and road hazards in real time, so that they can choose alternative routes and avoid traffic jams. Additionally, cars can inform other cars when they are about to make a turn, and let other cars know how fast they are moving, in order to allow drivers to adjust their speed accordingly and help them maintain a safe following distance at all times. Vehicle-to-vehicle communication technology will definitely be of great help to drivers, as it will help improve traffic flow, and increase highway safety. The NHTSA has announced that it will require all new vehicles to be equipped with this technology in the near future.
Arrow guides life-changing innovations
Two weeks ago, Arrow Electronics’ SAM Project won 2014 Institution of Engineering and Technology Award in London. The SAM (semi-autonomous motorcar) Project is an innovative project in which a 2014 Corvette C7 Stingray car has been modified with integrated advanced electronics and a human-to-machine interface so a qualified quadriplegic driver can safely operate it under racetrack conditions. The SAM Project is a collaborative venture between Arrow Electronics, Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., the Air Force Research Laboratory, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports and Falci Adaptive Motorsports.
On May 18, 2014, Sam Schmidt,a former Indy Racing League driver drove for the first time in fourteen years. He completed a lap—reaching a top speed of 105 mph—at the iconic Indianapolis Motor Speedway in front of thousands of spectators and a television audience in the millions.
But this isn’t a story about racing. It’s about freedom. It is about how we can help individuals to solve their problems, leveraging innovative interconnected technologies. The SAM vehicle is designed to restore independence, control and a sense of accomplishment to a qualified disabled driver despite the physical limitations imposed by injury. This technology breaks down barriers and opens new physical and emotional horizons, allowing all of us to be the drivers of our own lives.
For more information, go to http://www.arrowsamcar.com/
Automotive @ 2015 International CES
At the upcoming 2015 CES from January 6-9, 2015, in Las Vegas, Nevada, a record 10 automotive manufacturers Audi, BMW, Chrysler, Ford, GM, Hyundai, Mazda, Mercedes, Toyota and Volkswagen will showcase their latest technologies among an enhanced lineup of automotive technology exhibits, keynotes, marketplaces and conference sessions. Automotive exhibits at the 2015 CES will cover more than 165,000 net square feet of exhibit space, up 17 percent over the 2014 show.
BMW Innovation: 360-degree collision avoidance and fully-automated parking in multi-storey car parks
BMW was already demonstrating at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2014 how perfect control technology can provide highly automated mastery of all drive statuses right through to very tight margins.
Innovative sensors will allow BMW to demonstrate a number of features at the CES 2015 (6 to 9 January, Las Vegas) including the possibility of entirely collision-free driving.
This success plots another benchmark defined by the specialists at the BMW Group on the road route to individual mobility free of accidents with a driver and also in fully-automated mode with no driver at all.
The platform for 360-degree collision avoidance is secure position and environment recognition. The research vehicle is a BMW i3. Four advanced laser scanners record the environment and reliably identify impediments such as columns, for example in a multi-storey car park. If the vehicle approaches a wall or a column too quickly, the system brakes automatically to prevent the threat of collision.
If the driver uses the Smartwatch to activate the fully-automated Remote Valet Parking Assistant, the system will steer the vehicle independently through the levels, while the driver has already got out of the car and is on his way to a business appointment.
Continental to showcase ‘dynamic eHorizon’ connected car solution
At the international CES in Las Vegas January 6 to 9, 2015, Continental will be demonstrating a new stage in the evolution of the eHorizon, together with its collaboration partner IBM and the location cloud company HERE . Known as the “dynamic eHorizon,” it is connected to the HERE location cloud with real time digital maps and the IBM connected car cloud. Using IBM Big Data and Analytics it takes into account dynamic events such as weather, accidents, or traffic jams. With the help of Cloud Tech, the dynamic eHorizon turns the digital map into a high-precision and constantly up-to-date information carrier that can be used for so much more than just navigation. At the 2015 CES, Continental will present the dynamic eHorizon as the focal point of its innovations for displays, access technologies, connectivity, infotainment, driver assistance, and engine management and will show how these components and systems benefit from connecting the vehicle to the Cloud.
Texas Instruments creates the unexpected in automotive
Texas Instruments (TI) semiconductor technology is enabling the newest consumer products on display at the 2015 CES. From next–generation advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) to innovations for the Internet of Things (IoT) and wearable technology, TI’s portfolio of innovative power management, interface, haptics and audio integrated circuits, embedded processors, wireless connectivity and DLP® technology enable the most sophisticated and feature–rich consumer devices.
TI turns ambitious dreams into realities by creating technologies that improve and advance how we live our lives. TI innovation continues to revolutionize the consumer electronics industry, enabling even more exciting applications, such as autonomous vehicles, 3–D printing and energy harvesting.
