It’s easy to understand why so many futurology authors consider cars a measure of technological prowess. Aside from a way to commute to work (for the poor souls who can’t telecommute), cars are among our biggest expenses, and they put the latest innovations (literally) in our hands. Automobiles are gaining new functionality from on-board sensors, fast wireless communications, cloud-based services, real-time data access, and personalized human-machine interaction. Which is good news for consumers, and a challenge for designers, engineers, and developers.
Complexity
Complexity in automobile embedded systems is a huge deal, explained Dona Burkard, who has been working in the automobile industry for over 20 years. Her area of expertise is in powertrain embedded systems.
In 2006, there were 13 embedded CPUs (ECUs) in a vehicle, she said; today it’s 65. As Burkard explained, multi-core microcontroller architecture is being introduced in powertrain control modules to enable continued growth in the complexity of engine and transmission controls with lower power consumption and lower heat dissipation. But they also bring tech challenges: more difficult static/dynamic analysis; working with legacy applications with complex hand-written software that was never designed for parallel systems; the need for stricter standards.
It’s not just the foundational hardware that causes engineers to rethink the way things are done. Jayanthi Rao, whose attention is on wireless networking and mobility networking and mobile issues, discussed the role of in-vehicle connectivity and wireless technology.
Today’s vehicles have a network control system that includes the powertrain, chassis, and doors, all on a simple broadcast network. Automotive systems are engineered for high reliability -- multiple 9s thereof. (You don’t want your trunk opening as you’re driving down the highway, right?) The vehicle control signals contribute millions of lines of code
Entertainment
Most of us aren’t thinking about automobile connectivity today, though. We want the shiny stuff. “The car is becoming the smartest consumer device you will ever own,” said Pramita Mitra, senior solutions architect at the Ford Research and Innovation Center’s Digital Technology Ownership Experiences Group, whose own focus is on in-vehicle infotainment systems and cloud-connected services. Mitra reported that according to GFK research, five in ten purchase decisions are made based on in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), summarized as “travel time well spent.”
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