morethan55mcarstohave smartphoneappsby2020 · mission-criticalfeatures, we only select compo- ......

The monthly magazine for automotive electronics engineers

vehicle-electronics.biz

IN THISISSUE

Page 3: Adaspartnership

Page 3: infotainmentintegration

Page 5: Fleetmanagement choice

Page 6: Hyundaiopts for Most 150

Page 7: DDC report

1: Driver-in-the-loop simulation

Page 17: Arm’s plansfor automotive

Page 22: Adassemiconductormarket

Page 25: Renault’sconnected car vision

Page 31: Productnews

Page 36: Contactinformation

Issue 06June 2014Spam jams may replace

traffic jams, says KPMG

NEWS

Vehicle Electronics June 2014, Page 2

Bosch has opened its second automotive technology manufacturingplant in Romania. The location in Cluj will produce electronic compo-nents and control units for the European automotive industry. Thesecomponents are used, for instance, in driver assistance and safetysystems as well as for energy management. In the future, the Cluj plantwill also make the electronic heart of Bosch’s eBike drive.The company has invested more than €70m in the 36,000m2 factory.By the end of the year, it should be employing around 750 people.“Localising more of our manufacturing in eastern Europe will helpus increase our competitiveness,” said Dirk Hoheisel from Bosch’sboard of management.

Bosch opens plant in Romania

More than 55m cars to havesmartphone apps by 2020Smartphone apps integra-tion software from Appleand Google is forecast tobe sold in more than 55million cars by 2020 inEurope, the Middle EastandAfrica, according to astudy by IHS.Emea represents a sig-nificant growth marketfor OEMs,Apple, Googleand app developers. In2014, IHS Automotiveforecasts that Google Pro-jected Mode and Apple’sCarplay will only beavailable in 7000 and52,000 cars sold, respec-tively. By 2020, GoogleProjected Mode softwarewill be sold in more than28 million cars, andCarplay in more than 27million cars. These cumu-lative sales will be greaterthan sales in China duringthe same period.“Apps for autos aregrowing rapidly and willhave a profound impacton auto infotainment andconnectivity in the nextdecade,” said report au-thor Egil Juliussen, re-search director at IHS.“Auto apps will influencethe competitive landscapeamong auto OEMs andwill even change thebrand market share be-tween them. OEMs willhave to keep up to remaincompetitive.”Western Europe leads

the entire Emea region insmartphone apps integra-tion software due to itslead in automotive salesand smartphone appsales. But by 2020, east-ern Europe, the MiddleEast and Africa will seespikes of growth of theirown. By 2020, cumula-tive car-enabled sales ofCarplay and Google Pro-jected Mode in the Mid-dle East and Africa willtop sales in Korea andsales in eastern Europe

will top sales in Japan.“The in-car app marketis a new frontier forApple and Google’s mo-bile competition,” saidJack Kent, mobile analystat IHS Technology. “Eachis aiming to use their es-tablished expertise to de-velop mobile apps andcontent into the newrealm of automotive en-tertainment and services.”While Apple is theleader in announcedOEM design wins for

smartphone apps integra-tion in Emea and world-wide, Google will takethe number one place inby 2020. IHS forecaststhat Google ProjectedMode software will beenabled in nearly 100million cars. Carplay willbe a close second placewith 92 million cars soldwith the software. Manycars sold will have bothas the OEMs do not knowwhich smartphones theirbuyers will have.

We need to act now if weare to stop hackers delib-erately causing trafficjams when cities move toautonomous driving,warnsWil Rockall, direc-tor of KPMG’s cyber se-curity team.He said there was a seri-ous threat of what he calls“spam jams” where falseinformation could be de-liberately used to createtraffic congestion orcause a serious accident.“It is not an immediatethreat because these vehi-cles are not on the roadyet, but it is somethingthat people will want totry,” he said. “We need tounderstand this now sothat we build somethingthat will protect againstthis.”One of the key parts ofthis, he said, was to makesure that mapping sys-tems were protected sothat individual cars knowthey are getting informa-

tion from a reliablesource.“It depends on how thefinal cars work,” he said,“but most will use acloud-based mappingservice. We have to makesure that the mappingservice is strongly au-thenticated and that thecars are pulling downgenuine maps not fromsomeone impersonatingthe service.”Harder to guard againstwill be car-to-car commu-nications. This will workwith each car sending outinformation to other carsabout traffic conditions,road works, accidents andso on, even warningagainst poor road sur-faces.Here, there is a distinctopportunity for someonein control of one car tosend out false informationto other cars.“We have to make surethat the way decisions are

made is not based just onone car sending outwrong information oncongestion,” said Rock-all. “We need to raise thebar to make it difficult.We will never remove therisk completely, but wehave to apply the lessonswe have learned to makeit really difficult.”He said the history of ITshowed that it was rarefor a system to have beenbuilt that was not hack-able.The problems at Ebaywere a good example ofwhat could happen, hesaid.And there have beenproblems at airports withair-traffic control systemsacting on false informa-tion.“We know it can hap-pen,” he said. “We willhave self-drive cars andthere will be threats frompeople who want to dis-rupt the flow of traffic orcause a major incident.”

NEWS NEWS

Vehicle Electronics Vehicle ElectronicsPage 3, June 2014 June 2014, Page 4

Freescale Semiconductor,Green Hills Software andNeusoft are working to-gether to establish an ad-vanced driver assistancesystems (adas) ecosystemto speed and simplify thecreation of next-genera-tion automotive visionapplications.As adas vision systemsgrow to encompass agreater portion of vehiclebraking and steering sys-tems, developers and sys-tems designers needturnkey products that ad-dress stringent protocolsfor automotive safety, andare compliant with theISO 26262 functionalsafety standard. This pur-pose-built adas ecosystemis engineered to meetthese challenges bystreamlining the time-consuming process of de-veloping and portingcomplex algorithms totarget hardware.“Pairing sophisticatedobject recognition andidentification technolo-gies is a key step to bridg-ing first-generation adasproducts towards the au-tonomous vehicles of to-morrow,” said RayCornyn, vice president inFreescale’s automotiveMCU business.The integration com-prises Cognivue’s Apeximage cognition process-

Freescale, Green Hills andNeusoft form adas partnership

Typical adas applications

ing (ICP) IP fromFreescale with silicon-aware software fromNeusoft’s adas vision ap-plications, and the safetycertified Integrity operat-ing system and Multi toolchain from Green Hills.The result is off-the-shelfadas vision built on anISO 26262 Asil assessedsoftware foundation. Spe-cific applications includepedestrian detection, traf-fic sign recognition, colli-sion avoidance and otheradas capabilities.“We are proud to be

part of this promisingecosystem and to con-tribute with our real-timeobject recognition tech-nology that is the result ofmore than ten years of re-search and development,”said Guodong Jian, vicepresident of Neusoft.“OEMs have long beenwaiting for more flexibil-ity and improved time-to-market, which will be thefoundation for wideradoption of adas technol-ogy.”Apex processor tech-nology enables extraction

of application-specific in-formation from a sceneand interprets the imagedata to make decisions ortake actions based on theextracted data. Freescalelicensed the Apex-642ICP core IP in 2012 and isthe exclusive provider ofthis technology to the au-tomotive market.“Green Hills applaudsFreescale’s foresight inpartnering to develop acomprehensive, well con-structed adas vision appli-cation platform designedto address performance,functional safety con-cerns and core algorithmavailability essential forany next generation adassystem,” said DanMender, vice president ofbusiness development forGreen Hills Software.Simulator-based evalu-ation platforms are avail-able today. Fullavailability is planned forthe first half of 2015.

Pelagicore has integratedNvidia UI Composer Stu-dio and Qt on the NvidiaTegra K1 platform for au-tomotive infotainmentsystems. The K1 proces-sor has the same power-efficient Kepler-basedGPU architecture thatdrives supercomputersand PC gaming systems.UI Composer Studio isan HMI design tool usedfor instrument clustersand infotainment sys-tems. Developed byNvidia, it’s used by carmakers and tier-one sup-pliers to develop proof ofconcepts for evaluation,

market research, usabilitytesting and final produc-tion.“We strive to engagedesigners and connect thecreative minds to what istechnically possible,”said Alwin Bakkenes,CEO of Pelagicore. “Wefocus on the combinationof the best tools with op-timised software architec-ture – from pixel tosilicon.”At last month’s Geniviall members meeting inG o t h e n b u r g ,Sweden, Pelagicoredemonstrated its automo-tive reference user inter-

face written in Qt and UIComposer, running on itsPelux Headunit Genivicompliant software stackand K1 hardware. Thedemonstrator set-up in-cluded photorealistic 3Drendering of car status in-formation seamlessly in-tegrated into a Qt userinterface, full-HD videoplayback and a previewof how to enable down-loadable apps in a Genivisystem.Integrating UI Com-poser and Qt combinesphotorealistic 3D graph-ics with pixel-perfect 2Dgraphical user interfaces

on K1 processors. This al-lows integrated blendingand controlling of UIComposer scenes by Qtapplications.“The ability to bringrich 3D graphics withphotorealistic renderingenables automakers to de-liver a premium qualityin-vehicle experience,”said Sahin Kirtavit, seniordirector for automotivesoftware at Nvidia. “Ourcollaboration with Pelagi-core enables the benefitsof UI Composer designsoftware to be integratedwith mature HMI toolssuch as Qt.”

Integration boost for infotainment

Growing electronic con-tent in automotives andthe penetration of electricand hybrid electric vehi-cles is expected to helpdrive the market forFPGAs for the rest of thisdecade, according toGrand Review Research.It predicts the global

FPGA market to reachUS$9882m by 2020, butwarns that asics as viableFPGA substitutes mayhamper the market.A favorable regulatoryscenario for ensuringsafety in automotives isexpected to fuel FPGAadoption in developed

markets such as Europe.Asia Pacific accountedfor over 40% of theglobal market share in2013 and is expected togrow at a CAGR of 9.6%from 2014 to 2020.Telecoms is expected toremain the largest andfastest growing segment.

Car market helps growth in FPGAs

NEWS

Page 5, June 2014 Vehicle Electronics Vehicle Electronics June 2014, Page 6

NEWS

Hyundai will use Most150 in its all-new Genesismodel to provide connec-tivity and comfort for thedriver and passengers.This is enabled by thehigh-speed Most 150fibre-optic network.The standard enablesthe use of a bandwidth of150Mbit/s and an embed-ded Ethernet channel fortransport of IP-basedpacket data. Paralleltransport is used for manydifferent types of datasuch as audio, video andcontrol information, aswell as Ethernet and IPframes.Multimedia entertain-ment in the Genesis hasbeen improved from itspredecessor with a highdefinition LCD, bringinghome-style image quality

Ctrack, part of SouthAfrican based Digicore,has selected U-Blox GPSand cellular modules foruse in its fleet manage-ment products.Based on U-Blox’s NeoGPS and Leon and Lisa2G and 3G modules, theInsure, Secure and Litevehicle management sys-tems provide round-the-clock internet-basedsurveillance capabilitiesincluding real-time andhistorical positional over-view, automatic alerts inthe case of unauthorisedvehicle movement ortampering, area alerts,sars-compliant logbook,and optional remote panicbutton.“With over ten vehiclesstolen per hour in SouthAfrica alone, our vehicletracking systems providesecurity and peace ofmind to fleet managersaround the world by pre-venting theft and enablingrecovery” said MarkRousseau, Ctrack COO.“In addition, our productsincrease operational effi-ciency, driver productiv-ity and safety. For thesemission-critical features,we only select compo-nents with the highest re-liability on the market.For GPS positioning andcellular connectivity, wedepend on U-Blox.”

Hyundai opts for Most 150 togive comfort in Genesis project

into the car. Resolutionhas been improved from800 x 480 in the originalmodel to 1280 x 720.The AVN 4.5 system,fronted by a 20.3cm

touch screen, also incor-porates internet accessand Siri Apple integra-tion. Integrated technol-ogy includes Bluetooth,Wifi, GPS navigation,

traditional frequency,satellite and HD radio,and hands-free and app-supporting software.Google PoI is availablevia voice command.

Driver controls in Hyundai’s Genesis model

Ctrack picks U-Bloxfor fleet management

Ctrack partners withglobal cellular providerssuch as Vodafone, MTNand Celcom to ensurereal-time visibility of ve-hicles and systems beingtracked. It uses mappingapplications such asGoogle, Here Maps andTom Tom maps, givingcustomers a choice ofnormal, terrain and satel-lite views in its softwareapplications.

“U-Blox has a long his-tory as the number onesupplier of satellite posi-tioning and embeddedcellular communicationmodules in Africa,“ saidJennifer Nkire, area salesmanager for U-Blox,“Our partnership withCtrack is a result of ourtotal commitment to pro-vide them with the bestproducts and technicalsupport available.”

U-Blox modules to help Ctrack

Changan and STM form Chinese partnershipChanganAutomobile andSTMicroelectronics haveset up a joint research lab-oratory in China to focuson research and develop-ment in body, infotain-ment, powertrain andsafety applications.STM will provideChangan with state-of-the-art automotive semi-conductor technology andproducts, together withtechnical support and em-ployee training. The lab-

oratory will be hosted atChangan’s Global Re-search Institute inChongqing."ST Microelectronicshas demonstrated its com-petence in semiconductorproducts and technologiesinAsia, and China in par-ticular, as well as aroundthe world," said Li Wei,executive vice-presidentof the institute. "I believethis joint lab will kick offa new opportunity of

strengthened cooperationfor Changan and ST Mi-croelectronics, providinga broader platform of ex-tensive exchanges and fa-cilitating Changan's owninnovation and develop-ment of smarter cars. Ibelieve we are opening anew chapter of coopera-tion for both companies."The cooperation willextend from current proj-ects mainly on body ap-plication to cover other

subsystems in the car, in-cluding powertrain,safety and infotainment."The extended coopera-tion with Changan, one ofthe pioneers of China'smodern industry, willhelp us better leverage thehigh potential of the auto-motive market in China,as well as the GreaterChina and south Asia re-gion as a whole," saidFrancois Guibert, STM’sexecutive vice president.

Liberty Electric Cars hasbuilt the first fully func-tioning example ofDeliver, an electric deliv-ery vehicle funded by theEuropean Commissions’Seventh Framework Pro-gramme, which bringstogether ten partnercompanies from acrossEurope.Deliver will have itsworld premiere at theFisita World AutomotiveCongress, which starts on2nd June 2014 in Maas-tricht, Netherlands.The Deliver projectstarted in 2011 with thegoal to reduce the envi-ronmental impact inurban areas by 40% bymaking an electric lightcommercial vehicle thatcombines the needs ofinner city traffic with theadvantages of EVs.

Liberty Electricdelivers at Fisita

Google plans to build 100 prototypes of its self-driving car and aimsto start test driving them this summer. The goal is to run a pilotprogramme in California over the next couple of years.

Google building self-driving prototypes

Vehicle ElectronicsPage 7, June 2014 Vehicle Electronics June 2014, Page 8

Stopping the recallsHigh profile software fail-

ures leading to expensiverecalls have been worry-

ing many in the automotive indus-try and thus it was no surprise tofind this as one of the main areasof discussion in the softwarestream at last month’s DeviceDevelopers’ Conference inCambridge, England.

Interestingly, and perhaps sur-prising to some, the first solutionsuggested to this problem was forthe industry to adopt more opensource software as a way of guar-anteeing higher quality. This ideacame from Peter Heyes, a directorat SDC Systems.

“The world is very different towhat it was ten or fifteen yearsago,” said Heyes. “Now morethan 30% of the software is free oropen source.”

He said there had been a growthis support for this and he cited theGenivi Alliance as a good exam-ple within the automotive info-tainment sector.

“Cars basically all do the samething, but a lot of what they do issoftware based,” he said. “The in-fotainment system is basically thesame across all cars even if theylook different.”

The idea behind Genivi, he said,was to share code, which meantthat more developers got to lookat the code, which increased thechance of finding bugs.

“And you share the results ofwhat you find,” he said. “Thismeans you get more solid and re-liable code.”

Within a car there is an enor-

mous amount of software but this,he said, had to be safe and reli-able.

“The software really is safetycritical,” he said. “But there aresome serious glitches being iden-tified.”

The Toyota Prius recall is one ofthe most recent high-profile inci-dents, but there have been others.

“Something has to be done tostop expensive recalls and deathsand crashes,” said Mark Richard-son, field application engineer atLDRA.

As well as the potential cost tohuman lives, a software failurecan hit car makers hard in thepocket.

“In the USA,” Heyes said,“some $60bn a year is being spentfixing defects. If it goes wrong, italso damages your brand plus youcan have litigation costs.”

The other aspect is security.With so many more entries into acar though the likes of Bluetoothand 3G, making them secure isbecoming more difficult. Even aUSB socket or CD player in theinfotainment system can allowmalware in.

Another issue to be aware ofwas that of licensing. Heyes saidsocial networking had increasedthe amount of code sharing and alot of that code had no licence as-sociated with it but may becomelicensed later on.

When it comes to checking thesoftware, Heyes is an advocate ofsource code analysis (SCA) tools.

“These tools let you find bugswith little effort,” he said. “And

Steve Rogerson reports from the DeviceDevelopers’ Conference in Cambridge

Vehicle Electronics June 2014, Page 10Vehicle ElectronicsPage 9, June 2014

they will help you ensure compli-ance with standards such as ISO26262 and Misra. What SCA doesis look at the whole programme. Itwill find very difficult to identifyissues and security vulnerabilities.You are improving the quality ofyour code without adding moredevelopment cost.”

Most bugs, he said, were intro-duced as the code was developedand SCA acted like a spellcheckerin a word processor by finding thebugs as you type.

“If you can fix things earlier, thecost is lower and the productivityis better,” he said. “SCA tools willalso prove compliance with cod-ing guidelines and rules.”

However, he said there wereother problems that needed to beconsidered when using opensource code, such as what hap-

pens if it goes wrong. How do youfix it? Are there any active proj-ects?

“You need to stay on top ofchanges that are submitted,” hesaid. “And when you patch, youhave to check for new securityvulnerabilities. You need to workwith the open source developersto know what the state of play iswith the project. But not going theopen source route can be counterproductive.”

Richardson believes that a keyaspect of software development iskeeping the requirements at thefront of your mind.

“Everything has to be tracedback to requirements,” he said. “Ifyou can’t, then why are you doingit? Whatever we do, we need tomake sure we can trace it back toa requirement, even just testing a

bit of code.”This was the first of three met-

rics he said were essential for de-signing good code. The secondwas adhering to coding standards.

“The best way to make surethere are no defects is not to putdefects in,” he said. “Roughly80% of software defects whenusing C and C++ are attributableto the incorrect use of 20% of lan-guage constructs. So avoid thesubset that bring in the defects.”

But Jim Thomas, director ofsoftware testing at TVS, said thatthere were always going to besome defects.

“The goal is to develop softwarewith zero defects,” he said. “Thisis not really practical in mostcases, so you aim for a relativelysmall number of defects when youship.”

He said it was important for en-gineers to take pride in what theyproduced but said he knew thatoften there was pressure to deliveron time rather than reducing thedefects.

“This happens all too often andit can be difficult to change that

culture,” he said.Richardson also warned about

writing code that was too complexas this made it difficult to main-tain and difficult to test.

“I used to enjoy writing clevercode,” he said, “until I had to dosomething to it. And other peoplewould find it even harder to workout what I’d done. You need codethat is easy to understand, easy tomaintain and easy to test.”

And this lead to the third metric,which is to make sure it is tested.

“If you don’t exercise somethingbefore it goes into the field, youwon’t know what will happenwhen it goes into the field,” hesaid.

Thomas said the key was fortesting and development to workhand in hand.

“Testing should not be some-thing that only happens after de-

velopment,” he said. “But peopleare often not given enough time todo things properly and thereforehave to cut corners on verificationand testing.”

He said the answer was thus tobuild quality in rather than testingit in.

“That is what the safety stan-dards are trying to do,” he said.“You should focus on defectsright through the developmentrather than just testing them out atthe end.”

When it comes to debugging,Barry Lock, UK manager forLauterbach, has a rather interest-ing view of life.

“We only do debug tools, andthat gives us a biased view of theworld,” he said, “because all weever see are things that gowrong.”

But he said that was because too

many people did not think beforestarting their projects.

“Debug is not sexy,” he said,“but 70% of a project is spent de-bugging.”

Out of the two types of debugtools, he said he preferred traceover JTag because with JTag thecore had to be stopped to look in-side, which limited what youcould do.

“Trace systems collect data onprogramme flow with the coretrace port,” he said. “You gethistorical data non-intrusively,which you can then analyse.”

He warned that not using thetrace port can seriously delayprojects and said he knew of acase where a new car dashboardwas delayed for seven months be-cause they couldn’t find a bug asthey didn’t have trace on board.• For those who missed thisyear’s first two Device Develop-ers’ Conferences in May inBristol and Cambridge, theevents will be repeated in Chea-dle, Manchester, on 3 June andin Uphall, Scotland, on 5 June.

Peter Heyes: “If you can fix things earlier, the cost is lower andthe productivity is better.”

Mark Richardson: “Avoidthe subset that bring in thedefects.”

Barry Lock: “All we ever see are things that go wrong.”

Jim Thomas: “Testing shouldnot be something that onlyhappens after development.”

SIMULATION & MODELLING SIMULATION & MODELLING


Staying inthe loopAdvances in the integration of controlsystems and vehicle models as well asthe virtual driving environment arereasons why driver-in-the-loopsimulators should be an essential partof dynamic vehicle testing, accordingto Maarten van Donselaar

Simulators are increasinglyunderstood by automotiveengineers as an alternative

to expensive and time-consumingprototype building. Yet, the argu-ment for making the step fromdesk-top simulation to driver-in-the-loop simulation, in many

cases, still needs to be won.A simulator’s value goes way

beyond its ability to give vehicledynamics analysts repeatable,controllable feedback of the feelof their models. Simulators cancontribute to components and sys-tems development in steering, rideand handling, tyres, HMI and er-gonomic assessment, problem in-vestigation, software debugging,competitor assessment, andbenchmarking and engineer train-ing. Their use as a day-to-day en-gineering tool is not just limited tothe OEM; tier one suppliers andanyone responsible for the pro-gramming behind control systemsneed to use simulators.

But there is much more to simu-lators than assessment by engi-



neers for engineering. What aboutthe real customer – anyone from aracing driver to a 17-year-oldlearner – and real life situations?After vehicle models and controlalgorithms have been open-loopvalidated and tested, a humandriver should be introduced toclose the control loop.

We need his or her realistic re-sponse to, for instance, an emer-gency situation and to monitorhow that interferes with overallstability. We need to conduct ob-jective-subjective assessmentssuch as “how well does the car ab-sorb bumps”, “how does that cor-relate to design parameters” and“how comfortable is that interac-tion perceived to be”. Humans canhelp but also counteract the mostperfectly engineered control strat-egy, so we need to know how theybehave.

This is both expensive and dan-gerous in a prototype vehicle andit cannot be done behind a deskwith a Logitech steering wheel. Asimulator will offer an environ-ment that may not be 100% realis-tic (that is not the aim), butrealistic enough that the triggersare the same as in real world driv-ing so the driver responds natu-rally to what happens whiledriving the vehicle.

Rapid controllerAnother development, thanks tothe growing use of simulators inautomotive engineering, has beenrapid controller prototype testing;by hooking up the actual ECU tothe simulator, it can operate in ex-actly the same way as a real car.The simulator sends simulatedsensor signals to the ECU and thecontrol system sends its command

Increased computer power and laser scanning and building capability – offering road profiles, typesof surface, bumps and camber, and so on – have provided data to the required level of accuracy forautomotive simulation

signals back. This same loop canbe evaluated on a desktop ofcourse, but to be in any waymeaningful, there needs to be adriver in the loop.

Road scanningUntil recently, the industry wasforced to rely on basic softwareand fictive roads in which to testits simulated vehicles. This hasnot done much to aid the cause ofthe simulator as manufacturersnaturally want to validate their ve-hicle models by using the roadsthey know on their regular testroutes.

However, within the past coupleof years, increased computerpower and laser scanning andbuilding capability – offering roadprofiles, types of surface, bumpsand camber and so on – have pro-vided data to the required level ofaccuracy for automotive simula-tion (to 1mm in some cases).Costs have come down and thereare now the necessary tools toallow efficient, automated dataprocessing.

The tool chain to deliver this ad-vanced software – the requiredunderstanding of the vehicle dy-namics process and tyre behav-

Maarten van Donselaar

iour, vehicle modelling, imagegeneration, road scanning and in-terfacing with the real vehicle –are getting better and better.Depending on the level of accu-racy required, two software engi-neers can put together a 20kmroute in around six months.

This progress is allowing OEMsto take decisions much earlier inthe design process. Educatedchoices can be made without theneed to build a mule. For exam-ple, engineers can test multiple lo-cations of a fuel tank and see howthey affect the vehicle’s handling.

IntegrationThe integration of vehicle modelswith the simulator has never beeneasier. Having recognised the callfrom simulation engineers want-

ing to work with their own un-modified vehicle models, on theirown modelling packages and PCs,with and without the simulator,simulator manufacturers have de-veloped flexible external physicspackages.

Simulations created in vehiclemodelling packages such as Vi-Grade, IPG Carmaker, Vedyna,Carsim, DSpace ASM and Sim-pack can now be plugged andseamlessly integrated throughtheir Simulink S-functions, to runnatively, in co-simulation, withthe simulator. This saves time oncompiling code and saves costs byeliminating the need for the codegeneration packages. Removingthe need to compile code alsomeans that third party librariessuch as Bosch ESP can be used.

This does not replace the simu-lator’s internal vehicle model andmany users still prefer to go downthat route, especially if it is openarchitecture and users can easilymodify, add or replace subsys-tems.

The futureAutomotive simulation has bor-rowed much from the defence en-vironment. There is no greaterneed for off-line testing thanpreparing for battle. It’s largelystill a matter for the academics butwe are seeing interesting develop-ments with simulators and un-manned, remotely operatedvehicles. The driver will be onboard a simulator, sending thecontrol output to a real vehiclesome hundreds or thousands of



A bespoke, flexible, driving simulator is being used to support the design and testing of JaguarLand Rover vehicles. The six-degrees-of-freedom simulator is being used as a virtual engineeringtool by multiple design teams at the company’s design and engineering facility in Gaydon.Versatility is at the heart of the simulator, being suitable for both Jaguar and Land Rover vehi-

cles and featuring integrated production vehicle hardware and software. It’s a platform that al-lows cross-functional working within metres of where most of the key engineers are based.On delivery, the Jaguar Land Rover team was able to dive straight in and use the Cruden simu-

lator to interrogate the stability and precision of latest generation cars. To start with, engineersset up small, defined tasks and were surprised how soon, even in its off-the-shelf state, the simu-lator started to throw up other unanticipated characteristics and action items to be investigated.A simulator can help automotive engineers assess the driving experience qualitatively, in terms offeel, just as their customers do. This has proved to be far more useful than desktop simulationsin isolation.Specification details include an actual production seat, various Jaguar and Land Rover steering

wheels (with reach and rake adjustment) and pedal boxes that are integrated into the drivercockpit area to provide a realistic driving position. They are interchangeable within around 20minutes.The simulator integrates with the IPG Carmaker vehicle modelling software used by Jaguar

Land Rover for its desktop simulation via Cruden’s EPhyse Net external physics interfacingpackage. The software allows companies to run their vehicle models natively, in co-simulation,with its simulators, saving time on compiling code and saving cost by eliminating the need topurchase the Real Time Workshop conversion package.

Jaguar Land Rover driving simulator

kilometres away; the driver’s re-actions in the simulator will be aresponse to the returned input.This might sound far-fetched forthe road but it does point towardsthe next development frontier forautomotive electronics: the chal-lenge to get data back and forthwith high bandwidth and low la-tencies.

Maarten van Donselaar isCEO of Cruden

Vehicle model overview in external physics package

Wireframe simulation

MICROCONTROLLERS MICROCONTROLLERS


When the 2020 modelyear cars roll off theproduction lines, the

expectation is that we will see themost dramatic increase yet indriver assistance and other elec-tronic control functions as the carmanufacturers are targeting thatyear for the fruition of much oftheir current research and devel-opment. One company aiming totake advantage of that is Arm,looking to become an essentialpart of the electronics in vehiclesin the same way it has in smart-phones.

This would be a remarkableachievement for a companywhose share of the automotiveMCU market was effectively zerofive to six years ago and today isstill less than ten per cent. True,there are Arm products in variousparts of a new car’s electronicsand it is a growing area of theCambridge company’s business,but as of yet it has not brokethrough in the crucial applica-tions. This though it hopes willsoon change.

Boosted by Freescale’s an-nouncement in March this year oftargeting its Cortex M0+ basedKinetis EA series at automotivebody applications, the companynow sees it only has to win overRenesas and Infineon to the auto-motive potential of its productsand it will be well on the way toachieving its goals.

“Most of our microcontrollervalue has been outside of automo-tive until now but we are the pointwhere that is starting to change,”said Richard York, director ofproduct marketing. “It is startingto ramp up with STM andFreescale, but it is so difficult topredict. Once a partner is estab-lished outside of automotive, itmakes sense to adapt their prod-ucts for automotive.”

He said this would be made eas-ier if the push by Broadcom andFreescale to make Ethernet thedominant car network was suc-cessful.

“We are dependent on compa-nies such as Freescale to take theirproducts in the general-purposespace into automotive,” said York.“They are starting, but until theother guys do the same it will bedifficult to predict.”

The main target areas are adas,in-vehicle infotainment, dash-board, power train, chassis andsensors, and the recently an-nounced v8-R architecture wasdesigned with the automotive seg-ment in mind.

“People know our architec-tures,” said Chris Turner, seniorproducts marketing manager.“They have a consistency so theyknow they will run whatever thetarget processor we use. As such,our architectures move quiteslowly.”

The company is only on the

ARMEDand ready

Steve Rogerson visits Arm’sCambridge headquarters to hear aboutthe company’s plans to be a majorplayer in the automotive market

Arm’sCambridgeheadquarters

MICROCONTROLLERS MICROCONTROLLERS


eighth version of the architecturestretching over a period that hasseen hundreds of different proces-sor cores.

“This is a key part of the valueproposition to our semiconductorpartners,” said Turner. “They cantake our chip and not have toworry about whether debuggersand compilers are available. Thereare multiple choices for them. Thechip makers know we have a bigenough ecosystem that whereverthey go there will be softwarethere to support them.”

The company moved from ver-sion seven to version eight for appprocessors a couple of years agoand last year shipped the first IPthat supported that architecture.Last year came v8-R for real-timeapplications. Unlike the app ver-sion, this is not at 64bit but at32bit because the company be-

lieves that for embedded and auto-motive applications this is morethan sufficient.

VirtualisationWhat is more important for auto-motive is its capability for virtual-isation. However, there is stillsome work to be done before thereal-time version will be seen inactual products.

“The first IP using v8-R will notbe yet,” said Turner. “Our engi-neers are in discussion with someof our leading partners to defineexactly what the processors willlook like. But it is important toannounce the architecture early onbecause we want to tell peoplewhat we are doing. We are flyingthe flag, creating demand andbuilding interest.”

The other reason comes back tothe ecosystem. A lot of companies

are working on virtualisation inconditions that are not designedfor that.

“There are companies such asGreen Hills Software and MentorGraphics with virtualisation in thefield with significant room for im-provement if we give them sup-port with the underlyingarchitecture,” said Turner. “This iswhat v8-R does. So we have re-leased advanced copies so theycan see what we are beginning tobuild.”

Virtualisation is becoming a keyelement in automotive because ofthe increased concentration onsafety that came with the releaseof ISO 26262. Here again the useof Arm cores in non-automotiveapplications could be an advan-tage.

“The cost of ISO 26262 ishigh,” said York, “but the similar-

ity between it and some non-auto-motive standards is good. Our appprocessors will also crop up moreand more in automotive in info-tainment and some of these couldalso be used for adas processing.”

This is a big plus for the virtual-isation capability because it al-lows a complete on-chipseparation between the infotain-ment and adas functions. It alsobrings with it extra safety and reli-ability features.

“There will be more fault detec-tion and management features inv8-R than we have ever done be-fore,” said Turner. “You can usethe hypervisor to switch in andout of real-time control with areal-time interrupt to switch backto a rich operating system whenneeded. This allows you to have arich and a real-time operating sys-tem on the same system.”

Even though safety is a systemwide property and ultimately theresponsibility of the OEMs, ISO26262 has meant part of that re-sponsibility now lies in everystage of the supply chain and eachlink expects the link before it tohave considered the safety impli-cations in the design of their prod-ucts, right the way down to chiplevel.

“The OEMs will add ISO 26262to their requirements to the tierones who will in turn put that as arequirement to their suppliers,”said Lauri Ora, functional safetymanager. “That will trickle all theway down to us. We can’t solvethis ourselves but we can supportthat with the right information andthe right product. We have to de-velop safety applications withoutknowing the entire system. Wehave started supporting safetyfrom the bottom up.”

A big part of this is how Armpasses information to its licensees,which means documenting all theassumptions that have been madeabout the functionality of thecores.

“We have to say how we expectthem to use our IP,” said Ora. “Wesay we assume you will do this orthat if you expect the system towork.”

Arm also provides its siliconproviders information on whatlevel of safety analysis has beencarried out.

“We have engineers goingthrough the design to say whatwill happen if certain parts failand then pass this informationalong,” he said. “This helps thesilicon providers in their activi-ties.”

The company also believes thevirtualisation in v8-R will cure a

problem with Autosar in whichthe hardware did not match thesoftware consolidation profile.

“The original version of Autosarwas done to enable software con-solidation but the hardware hasn’tbeen up to the job,” said York.“This is about fixing that.”

Targeting 2020The target is for the IP using v8-Rto be released in time for the chipmakers to produce devices so thetier ones and OEMs can haveproducts ready for 2020 modelyear cars.

“We are looking at the automo-tive business in 2020,” saidSoshun Arai, embedded segmentmanager. “We are talking with sil-icon providers to optimise theSoC for dedicated areas. This willbe a big model year.”

One key area is in-vehicle info-Chris Turner: “We have released advanced copiesso they can see what we are beginning to build.”

Lauri Ora: “We have started supporting safetyfrom the bottom up.”

Richard York: “There is no inherent reason why Armdoesn’t apply to these areas.”

MICROCONTROLLERS SEMICONDUCTORS


tainment, which Arai says needsto move to a much higher per-formance as smartphone develop-ments have raised customerexpectations.

“Drivers have their smartphonesand the OEMs want to fill the gapbetween them and the car,” hesaid, “so the tier ones want to

bring more sophisticated CPUsinto infotainment. This used to bea generation behind the consumermarket but now it is moving tomostly the same.”

The problem is that automotivehas a much longer developmentcycle.

“This is a big challenge for

OEMs and tier ones,” said Arai.“We will see cars being upgradedover the internet or by dedicatedEthernet so we now are talking tocar makers about our securitytechnology. A lot of OEMs arelooking at security for infotain-ment.”

The next targets are electric andhybrid electric vehicles for motorcontrol and battery managementapplications.

“HEVs and EVs are more estab-lished in Japan but not in the USAand Europe,” said Arai. “Every-one is on the starting line so youcan get business from this area.Our cores are very low power sobattery management makes sensefor them. We are looking at Armcores running the cell balancingand so on. In automotive, this willgrow from the 2020 model year.”

This he described as “a gamechanging year” when what he saysare the big three – Renesas,Freescale and Infineon – will haveto change their offerings.

“They will consider how tochange the game and that is wherewe come in,” he said.

This is why Arm sees theKinetis EA announcement fromFreescale as so important.

“Freescale’s move with EA isbig for us because we see one ofthe big three putting our cores intoautomotive for body applica-tions,” said York. “They are fo-cussing on the core applicationsfor automotive, and this is an areawhere really we haven’t been in.This is quite exciting. It showsthere is no inherent reason whyArm doesn’t apply to these areas.We should see more announce-ments in the next few years fromother vendors. The question is nothow but when.”

Soshun Arai: “A lot of OEMs are looking atsecurity for infotainment.”

Among automotive tech-nologies, semiconductorsused for advanced driver

assistance systems (adas) haveshown a significant progress dur-ing the past couple of years. Semi-conductor revenue for adas grew18% in 2013 from US$1bn in2012. Revenues are estimated todouble in 2016 to $2bn.

Our research indicates adassemiconductor growth will besteady for the next 15 years, dueto increasing functionalities andfeatures that will be integrated inthe car with the aim to deployfully autonomous vehicles. Thetrend passes also through the im-plementation of data fusion mod-ules because of the need of moresensing redundancy and higherfunctional safety requirements as

Luca De Ambroggi and Akhilesh Konabelieve the semiconductor market fordriver assistance is on fast trackfound in ISO 26262 and Asil com-pliant standards.

Top runnersToday, semiconductor revenue forfront-view camera applications isgrowing particularly fast. Its costposition, the demand from cus-tomers and the encouragementfrom regional mandates and safetyregulations are major drivers.Revenue for semiconductors usedin front-view camera modules isexpected to grow by six times in2020 from $118m in 2013 with27.6% CAGR.

One of the possible mandates

from the European Commission isto have LDW-AEB (lane depar-ture warning and automatic emer-gency braking) as mandatory inevery car from 2016. This hascaused a boost to semiconductorrevenues for implementing LDW-AEB with a front-view cameramodule. Semiconductor revenuefor implementing AEB with acamera for pedestrian detectionaccording to Euro NCap’s defini-tion is expected to grow twentyfold in three years from 2013.

Also, the revenue for semicon-ductors used in radar and lidarmodules is estimated to grow

MarketFOCUS

SEMICONDUCTORS SEMICONDUCTORS

Vehicle Electronics June 2014, Page 24Vehicle ElectronicsPage 23, June 2014

threefold in 2020 from $236m in2013 with a CAGR of 16%.

Radar technologyGallium arsenide (GaAs) radarchipset suppliers indicate they aretending to phase out since theGaAs chipsets cost more than thesilicon germanium (SiGe) variety.Deployment of adaptive cruisecontrol and blind spot detectionsystems is set to rise because ofaffordable SiGe radar chipsets.

The 24GHz radar sensors arelikely to phase out by 2020 givingway to the 79GHz radar technol-ogy because of a possible mandateon dedicated bandwidth for auto-

motive applications. Among oth-ers, Freescale, Panasonic and STMicroelectronics are developingthe 79GHz automotive radar using5GHz (77 to 81GHz) bandwidth.

Lidar modules are expected toplay a major role in implementingactive control applications inmore sophisticated autonomousdriving systems, which manyOEMs are targeting in the 2020 to2025 time frame, depending onthe flavours in vehicle autonomy.

However, an accurate detectionof surroundings around a carmight not be enough when imple-menting autonomous driving sys-tems. Additional systems should

be present inside the car to moni-tor the situation of a driver andalso the passengers along with thedriver. For this reason, applica-tions such as driver monitoringand road frustration index makeautonomous driving a more reli-able and safe technology, relyingeven more on prevention.

Dynamic marketThe transition of driver assistancesystems from passive (warningonly) to active (active control) ishappening fast. Semiconductorrevenue for active systems is ex-pected to increase fourfold in2020 from $190m in 2013. Semi-conductor revenue for passivesystems is expected to reach$1.8bn in 2020 from $953m in2013 with a CAGR of 9%.

Nonetheless, we are still a bit farfrom autonomous vehicles. Theterm “autonomous” is very attrac-tive but quite generic and it spansacross different levels where driv-ers have different roles and re-sponsibilities in the car.

Examples for vehicle autonomygo from self-parking and platoon-ing functionality, through self-dri-ving under limited road and trafficcondition with drivers still main-taining control, up to fully au-tonomous vehicles. Fullyautonomous vehicles are howevernot expected to hit the marketsoon, not before 2030 to 2035. Itwill happen though.

Independent of technologies andelectronics, the next 20 years willsee the requirement to prepare anentire ecosystem for autonomousvehicles. Mandates and regula-tions need to be shared among dif-ferent countries. Legalimplications and liability for au-tonomous vehicles need to be

closely considered and regulated.Furthermore, OEMs need to

build from scratch a database ofpossible situations and test pat-terns to play with. System and ve-hicle testing needs to be bulletproof before the launch of au-tonomous vehicles. This extendedtesting, and the effort in design fortestability, will probably increasethe share of production costs, inaddition to the increasing amountof electronics and software.

Acceptance and trendsToday’s acceptance and diffusionof several adas technologies arealready reflected in the markettrend for multi-function adasmodules that tend to optimisehardware and adas functionalities.Multi-function systems have beenprogressively rising for a coupleof years. Regional NCap bodieshave driven car makers to offermore adas functions such asLDW-FCW (lane departure warn-ing and forward collision warn-ing), LDW-HBC (lane departurewarning and high beam control)or LDW-TSR (lane departurewarning and traffic sign recogni-tion) to achieve a five-star rating.

Since 2012, the minimum num-ber of applications implementedby OEM front-view camera mod-ules is at least two. The number ofcar makers that have implementeda single adas application with afront-view camera module is neg-ligible. Different multi-functionsystems implemented with afront-view camera module are:• Stand-alone: Single applicationimplemented by a front cameramodule such as LDW, LKA (lanekeep assistance) or HBC;• Basic multi-function: A combi-nation of two functions imple-

mented by a front camera modulesuch as LDW-FCW, LDW-HBCor LDW-TSR;• Mid-range multi-function: Acombination of three or four func-tions implemented by a front cam-era module; and• High-end multi-function: A com-bination of five or more functionsimplemented by a front cameramodule.At the end, the multi-function ap-proach reflects nothing else thanthe ever green trend that accompa-nies electronics and semiconduc-tors since their origins: integrationand consequent cost reduction.

On the semiconductor side, theintegration affects micro-compo-nent ICs (controllers and proces-sors) and sensors in the path tooptimise efforts and space to im-plement adas successfully. Amongthe micro-component IC suppli-ers, Infineon, Freescale, Renesas,Texas Instruments and ST Micro-electronics have high-end proces-sors on their roadmap which are

capable of implementing multi-functions. In particular, bothmicro-component ICs and sensorsoccupy major space in semicon-ductor revenues for adas. Suchoptimisation and integrationtrends have an obvious impact onthe overall bill of material.

Different methodsIntegrated methods include highfunctional integration in singlehardware, high relevance of soft-ware for system scalability lead-ing to high flexibility, and flexiblesystem architecture and high com-putational power. A modular ap-proach provides hardwarescalability, adjustments based onfeature attach-rate, easy decou-pling between safety-critical andnon-safety-critical hardware, andeasier implementation of redun-dancy schemes.

Luca De Ambroggi andAkhilesh Kona are analysts atIHS Technology

Top line semiconductorrevenue for driver assistancesystems

Semiconductor integration trends

Market share of front-view camera modules for lane departurewarning as a shared function

CONNECTED CARS CONNECTED CARS


Increasing the connectivity inmodern vehicles is accepted asa vital step if the goal of au-

tonomous driving is ever to befully achieved. To illustrate thisvision, earlier this year Renaultunveiled the Next Two, a proto-type for what it believes the con-nected car will eventually looklike, and a vision that is not thattoo far away as the car maker hasalready earmarked 2020 as themodel year for a production ver-sion of the vehicle.

“Thanks to the Next Two au-tonomous prototype, Renault’saim is to take up position rightnow in this field of advancedtechnology which we believe willreach the marketplace by around2020,” said Carlos Ghosn, CEO ofRenault. “With Next Two, wewanted to combine the worlds ofdelegated driving and connectiv-ity. Not only will autonomousdriving enhance safety but it willalso free up time for drivers.Being connected will enable themto make the most of this extratime by providing them with ac-cess to new in-car services such asvideo-conferences, on-line shop-ping, travel information andmore.”

And this is a key element of thisprototype in that the connectivityis not just being used for vehicle-

NEXT STEP Renault hasproduced aprototype to showhow it believesconnected carswill look by 2020

CONNECTED CARSCONNECTED CARS


to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infra-structure communications, butalso for giving the driver some-thing to do while the car is drivingitself. At the moment, Renault isonly predicting the use of au-tonomous driving by 2020 in carstravelling at up to 30km/hr in con-gested traffic. It does, however,see an extension of automaticparking to valet parking where thecar will not only park itself butwill also find the car parkingspace.

Meanwhile, the passengers anddriver can ensure their free time iswell spent by tapping into whatRenault calls “a hyper-connectedmobile lifestyle”. The idea is for itto pick up all available networksfrom 3G and 4G to Wifi and whatelse might be around by 2020 andrun all mobile operating systems,such as Apple and Android.

“Everybody is looking to savetime, particularly when it comesto driving,” said Frédéric Mathis,who is in charge of the Next Twoproject. “Next Two has conse-

quently been designed to help oc-cupants optimise the way theymanage their time and ensure thatwasted or lost time becomes use-ful or enjoyable by freeing up op-portunities to relax, educateoneself, have fun or work.”

According to Tom Tom andInrix, a daily return commute ofjust one hour loses drivers be-tween 60 and 80 hours a year inmajor European and Americancities. On top of that, drivers aresubjected to stress and increasedtiredness, which can have a long-term effect on their health. And,according to market watcher Gart-ner, these journeys account for atotal annual fuel consumption inEurope and the USA of 16bnlitres.

The hope is that connected carscan address all these problems,freeing up the driver’s time torelax or concentrate on other is-sues while the driving pattern oftraffic flow through a connectedcity should reduce fuel consump-tion significantly.

Meeting timeAs an example of how this willwork, Renault has inventedJuliette, a sales representative whoreceives a text message telling hershe has an off-site meeting andthat to get there on time she willneed to leave the office at 4pm.Her smartphone tells her to expecta 43 minute journey that includes20 minutes on a congested trunkroad that allows delegated driving.

Using the valet parking app onher smartphone, she tells the carto pick her up at 4pm outside thebuilding, which it does au-tonomously. If she wants, she canuse the smartphone to look at theviews from the various camerason the car.

As she approaches the car at4pm, it recognises her, unlocksthe door and adjusts the seat andmirror to her preferred settings. Iteven tunes the radio to herfavourite station. The navigationscreen and head-up display showher route.

As the car reaches the delegateddriving zone, Juliette lets the cartake over and the seat automati-cally adjusts to comfort-mode set-tings. Juliette uses the free time toprepare for the meeting and ac-cesses information stored in thecloud. She also initiates a videocall to a colleague to get some lastminute information.

But the car suddenly warns herof an unexpected delay ahead thatwill make her late for the meeting.She can call her customer to sayshe will be late, but the car comesup with an alternative that shechooses. So, it leaves the mainroad, heads for a nearby car parkand downloads a metro ticket toher smartphone to allow her tocomplete the journey by under-

Proposed connectivity options and other features on the Next Two

Carlos Ghosn: “With Next Two, we wanted to combine the worldsof delegated driving and connectivity.”

ground train. The car drops her offat the station and finishes parkingon its own.

Affordable technologyThe Next Two prototype is basedon the Renault Zoe and isequipped with a camera, forward-facing sensor and ultrasonic fieldaround the vehicle to form a pro-tective bubble. The company hasstrived to make the technologybeing demonstrated affordable foraverage motorists.

“Next Two is a realistic proto-type which incorporates technolo-gies that are sufficientlywell-developed to be built intoproduction models in the medium-term future,” said Mathis. “Ittakes advantage of affordabletechnologies with the aim ofmaking their use as widespread

as possible.”The front-facing sensor is used

to analyse the vehicle ahead, cal-culating how far away it is and atwhat speed it is moving. The cam-era serves to detect lateral mark-ings on the ground, to position thevehicle correctly in its traffic lane.On this, Renault is working in col-laboration with the Vehicle-Infra-structure-Driver InteractionsLaboratory (Livic), a research lab-oratory born out of Inrets andwhich specialises in advanceddriving assistance systems.

“It helps us to define drivingstrategies in accordance with thevarying reliability of the informa-tion received from the groundmarkings,” said Mathis.

The data received from the sen-sor and camera are forwarded to asupervisor which, in turn, commu-

nicates with the control units forthe electric power steering, motorand decoupled brake pedal. Tokeep up with the flow of traffic, itadapts the instructions it transmitsto the motor and brakes. Similarly,to keep the vehicle in the samelane, it sends the steering systeman instruction of what angle tofollow.

The calculator must ensure thatthere are no contradictions be-tween the various instructions sentto the steering, motor and brakes,to avoid the car accelerating mid-way through a corner, for exam-ple, or braking suddenly due to anill-timed detection.

“We have also paid particular at-tention to the way the driver re-sumes control of the vehicle,” saidMathis. “This embedded intelli-gence makes all the difference be-

CONNECTED CARS CONNECTED CARS


tween Next Two’s delegated driv-ing functions and the separateadas functions such as automotivecruise control and lane keepingassist, which already exist today.”

For the vehicles to switch to del-egated driving mode, Renault be-lieves the connected cars must beon a protected route that does notallow pedestrians or cyclists. No-tably, some other car makers dis-agree with this believing that anautonomous car will be far betterable to deal with pedestrians andcyclists that a human as its reac-tion times will be quicker. The carmaker also sees such routes aslimited to a maximum 30km/hr,again contested as others believethat faster moving motorwayspose far easier problems for au-tonomous vehicle designers. For

practical purposes, the delegateddriving period should be at leastfive minutes, say Renault, to makeit worthwhile for the driver tostart some other task.

Renault though realises thatsome of this vision is limited andis looking at this area but wants totake it one step at a time.

“Our ongoing research workseeks to ensure the most seamlesstransition possible between peri-ods of delegated driving and timeswhen it is the driver in control,”said Rémi Bastien, Renault’s di-rector of engineering and innova-tion. “We are working to extendthe delegation of driving functionsin progressive stages, regardlessof the level of complexity, to in-clude fast roads and motoring inbuilt-up areas. Obviously, increas-

ing the scope of the zones wheredriving can be delegated also in-creases the diversity of situationsthat are covered, placing ever-greater importance upon the vali-dation of our findings.”

Renault’s first considerationconcerned the automatic mode.When the car takes over, the head-up display (HUD) becomes blue.The aim of this is to create a re-flex in the driver’s mind that asso-ciates the colour blue with theautomatic mode.

“To prevent ambiguous situa-tions, we wanted a basic binary,on-off system which immediatelyindicates how the car is beingdriven at any given moment,” saidMathis.

When driving of the vehicle isbeing delegated, the HUD and

dashboard display allow a per-fectly logical dialogue to takeplace between the driver and thecar. An augmented reality systeminvolves superimposing additionalinformation that is useful to thedriver onto a real image, a form ofaugmented reality. The car makeralso decided to take advantage ofthis while the vehicle is beingdriven conventionally to deliver atype of enriched navigation. Any-one who has already used a navi-gation system knows that incertain complex situations – suchas roundabouts or at motorwayjunctions – it is not always easy tofind your marks and take the cor-rect decisions.

“In the case of Next Two, thearrow is superimposed onto a real-time image of the road ahead

which is projected onto theHUD,” said Mathis. “This makesnavigation simpler whatever thecircumstances because the arrowis portrayed in the vehicle’s actualposition on the road. Even if theroad ahead is concealed by atruck, the driver knows exactlywhere to head or to turn. The sys-tem also highlights those trafficsigns that influence the vehicle’sspeed, such as warnings of apedestrian crossing or a dangerousbend, for example. The others arenot highlighted, however, so asnot to overload the driver’s atten-tion.”

When driving is being dele-gated, the driver can take his orher eyes off the road. In this case,the HUD serves to display infor-mation that reassures the driver

with regard to what the vehicle isdoing. For example, if the car iscalculating its position on the roadin relation to a target vehicleahead, this vehicle is highlighted.At the same time, the detectabilityof the road’s ground markings isdisplayed during the delegateddriving mode so that, should thecar estimate it is insufficient andask the driver to take over, the lat-ter knows instantly why by look-ing at the display.

ConclusionMany car makers are pinpointing2020 as the model year when thebig changes in adas and connectedvehicle technologies will hit theroad. Renault’s vision with theNext Two gives some idea of whatwe can expect.Back to the future: The Next Two represents Renault’s vision of a connected car

If the car is driving itself, the driver can do other tasks

PRODUCTS

Vehicle Electronics Vehicle ElectronicsPage 31, June 2014 June 2014, Page 32

PRODUCTS

A cloud-based environ-ment for designing vehi-cle wire harnesses waslaunched by Cadonix atlast month’s ElectricalWire Processing Technol-ogy Expo in Milwaukee,USA. Called Arcadia, ithas been designed fromscratch and been on trialwith some potential cus-tomers for the past year.“Arcadia is a suite ofsoftware tools for design-ing and analysing vehicleelectrical systems,” saidJon Collins, Cadonix’sbusiness development di-rector. “We have beenworking with pilot cus-tomers and we launchedat the show in the USA.”The product is aimed atOEMs and harness sup-pliers, but for the timebeing there will be nofocus on the large carmanufacturers.“We are not aiming atthe BMWs and Volkswa-gens of the world,” saidCollins. “We are aimingat the specialist car mak-ers that don’t make athousand versions of thesame machine. We couldbe used by, say, BMWbutthey take a long time tochange. They have theirown processes. We willget to them through theharness manufacturers.”

Cloud system simplifieswiring harness design

He said the main focuswas again on the smallermakers of harnesses be-cause they could make adecision more quicklythough he said the com-pany was talking with thelarger ones. The first saleto be announced has beento harness maker AQWiring Systems.“They have been usingit for the past twelvemonths,” said Collins,“and have been convert-ing their existing tools tous. They are the first touse it on an actual projectrather than the others who

have been mirroring italongside their existingsystems.”He said there were twoother companies that havebeen using it for the pastsix months but Cadonixwas not ready to revealtheir names, but one is acar manufacturer and theother a harness maker.The big advantage, saidCollins, over existing sys-tems was its ease of use.“They don’t want some-thing complex,” he said.“And the fact that it iscloud based means it hasa really small IT foot-

print. You just install it onthe server and you can ac-cess it from an HTML5compliant browser. Up-grades can be done on theserver and everyone hasinstant access.”The tools provideschematic design, ani-mated circuit simulationand analysis, electricalnetworking, harness de-sign, and full rule check-ing for harness layout andmanufacture. It interfaceswith 3D mcad and enter-prise wide PLM and ERPtools, smoothing the tran-sition to manufacturing.

Intersil is preparing forthe law change in theUSA that will require allnew cars to have rear-view cameras from 2018by introducing theTW8836 video processor.The law will also requirethe video from the camerato be on screen within 2sof reverse gear being se-lected.To help tier-one suppli-ers meet these regula-tions, Intersil is buildingon technology it acquiredwhen it bought Techwellin 2010.“The Techwell productswere centred on mixed-signal video technology,”said Jonpaul Jandu, Inter-sil’s senior marketingmanager. “It was wellsuited to the televisionmarket, but we decided tofocus on automotive be-cause the television mar-ket was so bloody. Weliked the longevity of theautomotive space.”The device accepts bothanalogue and digitalvideo inputs and includesa built-in scaler and de-interlacer, as well asimage enhancement andon screen display capabil-ities in a single-chip. Itcan be used to displayrear camera video withgraphic overlay in lessthan 500ms from the startof a vehicle, exceeding

Video processor ready for USlaw change on rear-view cameras

US government regula-tions. This device canalso be used in infotain-ment system applicationsand is optimised for usewith many popular SoCs.Though it has similari-ties to its predecessor –the TW8816 – it scoresby no longer needing theseparate TW9900 de-coder to send digitalvideo to a SoC or GPU,which is how it achievesthe fast response time.Because it does not re-quire any external mem-ory, the video is latencyfree. Since the device is ahardware-based, manyautomotive manufactur-ers view the LCD videoprocessor as more reliablein terms of fast boot capa-bility and as a more stablevideo path for the rearcamera than just usingsoftware on the main

processor. Because themain processors requiretime for the operatingsystem to boot up, there isrisk to routing the rearcamera video throughSoCs as any glitch in thesoftware could compro-mise the reliability andintegrity of the backupcamera video.“It can also be used fordual rear-seat headrestvideo systems,” saidJandu. “Each seat canshow different or thesame images dependingon preference. The chiphas that flexibility.”The LCD video proces-sor can take virtually anytype of video input – in-cluding analogue com-posite, S-video, analogueRGB, digital RGB andOpen LDI (LVDS) – anddrive almost any digitalLCD panel up to

WXGA+ (1366 x 768)resolution, includingTTL, single-channelOpen LDI and timingcontroller-less panels,making it suitable for rearcamera display or multi-ple video source infotain-ment applications.Due to the flexibilityand input and outputvideo support, the devicecan be used by automo-tive OEMs to supportmore analogue and digitalvideo sources, as well asoffload the video process-ing workload from themain processor, allowingthe processor to supportadditional system func-tionality or letting themanufacturer use a lowercost processor.The device is AEC-Q100 grade two qualifiedand has gone into massproduction.

PRODUCTS

Vehicle ElectronicsPage 33, June 2014

PRODUCTS


Wind River has enhancedits Platform for Infotain-ment to meet the GeniviCompliance 5.0 specifi-cation. Updates includeavailability on new refer-ence hardware and workwith ecosystem collabo-rators to grow capabilitiessuch as enhanced dataconnectivity.There is now availabil-ity on reference hardwarefor the Renesas R-Car H2and M2 and Nvidia TegraK1 SoCs for high-end in-vehicle infotainment(IVI) and informationsystems targeting visualcomputing applications inareas such as automotive

navigation, IVI and driverassist systemsIntegration with Tuxerafile systems ensures inter-operable data connectiv-ity and plug-and-playinteroperability with ex-ternally brought-in datastorage. The fail-safe de-sign protects against lostuser content during plug-off or a power dropThere are also user in-terface and graphical de-velopment enhancementsand Wayland and Westonenablement“As automotive sys-tems become more com-plex to keep up withevolving demands and re-

quirements, software isincreasingly playing amore significant role,”said Georg Doll, vicepresident of automotiveat Wind River. “Fewcompanies have the mixof automotive, embeddedand open source softwareexperience and industryrelationships to success-fully guide customersthrough today’s complexprojects.”The company has alsodeveloped proof-of-concepts that consolidatedigital cluster displaysand an IVI system onto asingle architecture orECU. This not only

demonstrates space andpower savings but also re-duces complexity bymoving integration ef-forts from hardware tosoftware. This approachcreates an opportunity toconsolidate more of thesoftware-driven functionsonto fewer but more pow-erful hardware platforms.The platform is basedon the Yocto Project opensource development in-frastructure. It includesreference boards, accom-panied by integrated soft-ware development andtest tools, along withYocto Project toolchaincomponents.

Infotainment platformupdated to Genivi compliance

Toshiba Electronics is ex-panding its line of imagerecognition processorswith the TMPV7502XBGfor small-size cameramodules. It comes in apackage measuring 11 by11mm and has a typicalpower consumption of0.6W.The device can be usedin advanced driver assis-tance systems (adas) thatrecognise lanes, roadsigns, vehicles and pedes-trians from images col-lected by cameras aroundthe car and in electronic

side mirrors.The processor uses thecompany’s 32bit riscCPUMeP (media embed-ded processor) and twomulti-core media process-ing engines.Incorporated is a single-channel video input inter-face and optimised circuitconfiguration to enablethe rapid detection ofmultiple vehicles, signsand people. This fast de-tection is made possibleby the incorporation ofcohog (co-occurrence his-tograms of oriented gradi-

Image processor recognisesroad signs

ents) hardware detectiontechnology and fourimage processing acceler-ators.Rated for operation atambient temperatures of -40 to +85˚C, it is housed

in a 324-pin P-LFBGApackage with 0.5mm ballpitch.Sample shipments havestarted and mass produc-tion is due to start in No-vember 2014.

Micronas has extended itsHall-effect sensor portfo-lio with the Hal 15xyswitch family – a succes-sor to the Hal 5xy family

– for automotive applica-tions. The company’s dis-tributor Rutronik will beshowing the sensors at theSensor & Test exhibition

from 3 to 5 June 2014 inNuremberg, Germany.The sensor family wasdeveloped for harsh envi-ronmental conditionsfrom -40 to +150˚C ambi-ent temperature.As the first generationof Asil A ready Hall-effect switches with a sin-gle-point fault metricgreater than 60% accord-ing to ISO 26262, thesensors fulfil functionalsafety requirements. Theyprovide diagnostic fea-tures, allowing a deploy-ment in Asil A, B andhigher classified automo-

tive applications. Foreven more stringent secu-rity requirements, theyhave an additional,power-on self-test. It canoptionally be enabled fora full functional test ofthe sensors’ signal pro-cessing path and outputbefore starting standardoperation.A three-wire versionhas short-circuit protectedopen-drain output and atwo-wire version withcurrent source interface.They come in a SOT23package and consume1.6mA.

Sensors meet functional safety requirements

At PCIM in Nuremberglast month, Rohm showeda 16-model line of LDOsoptimised for MCUpower supplies in auto-motive body and power-train systems. TheBD4xxMx series, withthe BDxxC0A series forpower supplies for in-carinfotainment systems,brings the company’snumber of automotive-grade LDOs to 43.The BD4xxMx seriesuses 0.35µm bic/dmosprocesses and takes ad-vantage of the company’sanalogue design technol-ogy to achieve less than

half the no-load currentconsumption of standardproducts. In addition, thecircuit design enablessupport for ceramic ca-pacitors, eliminating theneed for electrolytic ca-pacitors for oscillation

prevention, reducingmounting area and costs.The series is availablein a range of form factors,from power packages thatsupport harsh environ-ments to compact, space-saving types, and in

different output currentsand voltages. Input toler-ance is 45V.Stable voltage outputwith no output fluctua-tions or oscillation is pos-sible using a small (1 to10µF) external capaci-tance. This is what allowscompact ceramic capaci-tors to be used, contribut-ing to space savings.Applications includefuel injection, HEV andEV inverters, tyre pres-sure monitoring systems,body control modules,smart keys, head-up dis-plays, LCDmonitors, andcluster systems.

LDOs optimised for powertrains

Vehicle ElectronicsPage 35, June 2014

PRODUCTS

Editor and Publisher:Steve [email protected]

Advertising Manager:Jayne [email protected]

Web Site Manager:Martin [email protected]

Published by: Vehicle Electronics Magazine,72 Westwood Road, Nottingham NG2 4FS, UK

Web site: vehicle-electronics.bizTwitter: @velectronicsmag

© 2014 Vehicle ElectronicsISSN 2055-1177

Vehicle Electronics is available to readers world-wide. It will be published approximately twelvetimes a year in a digital-only format. All rights re-served. No part of Vehicle Electronics may be re-porduced or transmitted in any form or by anymeans, electronic or mechanical, including photo-copying or recording on any information storagesystem, without the written consent of the pub-lisher. The publisher cannot be held responsiblefor loss or damge to unsolicited press releases orphotographs. Views of contributors and advertis-ers do not necessarily refelect the policy ofVehicle Electronics or those of the publisher.

PRODUCTS


The A8585 from AllegroMicrosystems is an auto-motive buck regulator ICdesigned to provide thelow quiescent currentpower supply require-ments of next-generationcar audio and infotain-ment systems.The AEC-Q100 quali-fied device incorporatesthe control and protectioncircuitry required for ahigh-current regulatorwith ±1.0% output volt-age accuracy. It operatesover an input voltagerange of 4 to 35V, andprovides a choice of pulsewidth modulated (PWM)or pulse frequency modu-lated (PFM) operatingmodes.In PWM mode, the de-vice uses current-modecontrol to provide simple

The industry’s first two-channel switching LEDdriver for front lights andthe only linear LEDdriver with single shortLED detection for rearlights are available fromTexas Instruments.Unlike other LED driv-ers in the market, theTPS92630-Q1 andTPS92602-Q1 have bothhigh-side current sensedimming and pulse widthmodulation (PWM) dim-ming capabilities, as wellas full diagnostic andthermal management,which helps designerscreate flexible lightingsystems that meet manycountries’ differing trafficregulations.The TPS92630-Q1 forrear lights has single LEDshort detection and fulldiagnostic capabilities. Itsupports up to 15 IC con-nections on one bus andsupports control logicwithout an extra micro-controller. Thermal cur-rent fold-back withprogrammable thresholdprevents LED flickeringin thermal shut down situ-ations.Each channel of the

Regulator IC provideslow quiescent current

compensation, stabilityand fast transient re-sponse. In low quiescentcurrent mode, it usesPFM to draw less than33µA from an input of12V while providing anoutput of 5.0V, 40µA.Once operational, it willoperate from an inputvoltage down to 3.6V(falling).The transition fromPWM to PFM mode canbe controlled by the user

(A8585, A8585-1) or itcan occur automatically(A8585-2, A8585-3).Both versions have fixedoutput options of 3.3 or5V with ±1.0% accuracy.Other features include aprogrammable PWMswitching frequency from300 to 550kHz, whichcan be synchronised to anexternal clock. Externalcompensation improvesstability and transient re-sponse for various exter-

nal components and ap-plications. The fixed softstart time is 5ms.Protection features in-clude pulse-by-pulse cur-rent limit, hiccough modeshort-circuit protection,open-short asynchronousdiode protection, bootopen-short voltage pro-tection, input under-volt-age lockout, and thermalshutdown.EMI reduction featuresinclude frequency dither-ing and a controlledswitching node.The regulator IC is tar-geted at automotive andindustrial markets for ap-plications such as auto-motive infotainment,instrumentation clusters,centre stack and advanceddriver assistance systems.The A8585KLKTR-Tcomes in a 4.9 by 6.0mmten-lead soic packagewith exposed power pad.The package is Pb free,with 100% matt tin lead-frame plating.

LED driversbreaking newground for frontand rear lights

TPS92602-Q1 for frontlights can support buck,boost, buck-boost, sepicand flyback topologies. Itsupports linear analoguedimming with high-sidecurrent sensing and PWMdimming with high-sidepmos fet.A dedicated diagnosticpin sends normal statusand fault information tothe body control modulefor flexible control.The device switches be-tween constant currentand constant voltagemode for LED open pro-tection. It switches toconstant voltage modewhen LED open occursand automatically recov-ers back to constant cur-rent mode when the LEDopen is closed.Spice models and eval-uation modules are avail-able for both.The TPS92630-Q1comes in a 16-pin htssopand the TPS92602-Q1 ina 28-pin htssop.

An updated version ofJLT’s rugged in-vehiclecomputers has been intro-duced. The Verso+ 10 issmaller, easily dockable,has an improved range forBluetooth communica-tions and a better touchdisplay.The computer is aimedat the high-end of the in-vehicle market, targetingapplications such as min-ing equipment, drillingrigs, agricultural vehicles,ports, construction, andoil and gas platforms.“We are trying to posi-tion ourselves at the highend of the market,” saidCEO Per Holmberg. “Weare going for performancefor complex and demand-ing applications. And re-liability is important forour customers because ifit stops working it quicklygets expensive.”He said the companywas trying to stay out of

the low-end of the marketbecause it was very com-petitive and price sensi-tive. “Some are evenusing IPads,” he said.On size, it uses a25.4cm sunlight-readabledisplay compared with 30and 38cm on previousmodels.“Even in big vehicles,the cab is quite cramped,so we have made itsmaller,” said Holmberg.The display uses capac-itive touch technologyrather than resistive as onprevious models. This letsthe company make itmore scratch resistant aswell as enabling two-fin-ger operation.An improvement isquick-lock that makes iteasier to dock and undockfrom the vehicle. Thismeans a driver can havethe same computer forwhatever vehicle is beingdriven.

In-vehicle computerreceives makeover

morethan55mcarstohave smartphoneappsby2020 · mission-criticalfeatures, we only select compo- ......

Documents