The evolving automotive industry

Besides electrification, autonomous and connected vehicles are two big automotive trends driving innovations for advanced features. These include meeting demand for advanced safety for applications like advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving (AD), functional safety requirements and advanced in-vehicle systems. As part of this transformation, new connectivity and communication standards are also under development that will help enable improved safety features and reliability.

There is also an evolution in the electrical/electronic (E/E) architecture underway that is designed to simplify the vehicle architecture by reducing the number of electronic control units (ECUs) and cabling. The move from domain to zone architectures may also be one of the first steps toward software-defined vehicles.

Couple these trends with the need to support automotive standards for functional safety, security and secure over-the-air (OTA) software updates, and this translates into big design challenges for automotive engineers.

In this month’s issue, we look at some of the latest technology innovations, including automotive processors and LiDAR and radar sensors that are driving the industry toward improved safety. This also includes new connectivity and communication standards that will meet the requirements for high-speed and low-latency data transmission for real-time decision-making that will help deliver highly reliable and fail-safe control of autonomous and connected vehicles.

A key enabler for self-driving and connected vehicles is vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology, which allows vehicles to communicate with their surroundings, including other vehicles, pedestrians and transportation infrastructure.

Developed to enable vehicles to seam­lessly interact with other vehicles, traffic infrastructure and cloud resources to augment travel safety, V2X technology uses two primary wireless communication standards: dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) and cellular V2X (C-V2X), contributing writer Abhishek Jadhav said.

With DSRC still facing some challenges, Jadhav reports that there is a transition toward C-V2X, which can handle high-network–capac­ity requirements and support data-inten­sive workloads with high bandwidth. He calls the technology “a fusion of the strengths of cellular network and radio base stations that enable better safety services and autonomous driving.”

C-V2X can handle direct safety communication for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) and vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P) com­munication in intelligent-transportation–system bands as well as network communication for vehicle-to-network communication.

For connected cars, the MIPI Alliance has introduced the MIPI A-PHY, the industry’s first standardized asymmetric long-reach SerDes specification, and an end-to-end MIPI Automotive SerDes Solutions (MASS) connectivity framework. These new standards are designed to simplify the integration of cameras, sensors and displays with built-in functional safety, security and data protection.

ADAS, AD and in-vehicle infotainment have made the need for standardized interfaces more important with the higher number of cameras, sensors and displays in vehicles, adding to the challenges of complexity, bandwidth and interoperability, said Anne-Françoise Pelé, editor-in-chief of EE Times Europe.

In a Q&A with the MIPI A-PHY working group chairs, Pelé reports that “A-PHY delivers lightning-fast unidirectional data, embedded bidirec­tional control data and optional power delivery—all over a single cable,” which cuts overhead for wiring, cost and weight requirements while delivering “exceptional” reliability and electromagnetic-interference resilience. In addition, the end-to-end MASS connec­tivity framework, built on A-PHY as the foundation, streamlines the integration of cameras, sensors and displays while delivering functional safety and security.

What’s ahead for the specification is doubling the speed and enhancing the A-PHY’s flexibility for future zonal architectures. Today, the domain architecture is the primary E/E architecture, which organizes ECUs and cabling into specific domains, while zone architectures group domain functions based on location inside the car.

Engineers at Texas Instruments Inc. said the zone architectures will reduce the number of ECUs and cable lengths, simplifying vehicle architecture. The move will also allow OEMs to increase their ownership of software content with firmware over-the-air (FOTA) updates, a ser­vice-based structure and aggregating real-time control. It will also enable energy-saving power distribution topologies by powering down unused sub-modules, TI said.

The next potential evolutionary steps will be toward fully software-defined vehicles with FOTA updates as a key driver for zone control architectures and a vital part of a software-defined vehicle, TI said. This will include the integration of audio and video systems, ADAS sensors and powertrain and chassis functions.

“The actual E/E architecture transformation to a fully software-defined vehicle will happen in incremental steps, moving more and more functionalities into zone architectures while increasing centralized processing where it makes sense,” TI said.

Advanced processors will be one of those enablers for zone architectures and key to many automotive systems, including ADAS, AD and infotainment. A mix of processors—microprocessors (MPUs), microcontrollers (MCUs) and systems-on-chip (SoCs)—are used throughout a vehicle, and all need to meet a high level of reliability, quality and durability.

“When selecting a processor for an automotive application, there are several factors to consider, including power consumption, performance, temperature range and the availability of development tools and software support,” contributing writer Stefano Lovati said. It also requires careful consideration of the application requirements, along with the processor’s features and capabilities.

In general, Lovati said that MPUs provide high perfor­mance and flexibility for complex appli­cations, while MCUs provide low power consumption and real-time control for safety-critical systems. However, he said, SoCs combine the best of both worlds and offer high per­formance and low power consumption for advanced applications like ADAS and AD.

Sensing technologies are another key enabler for greater safety and security in automotive systems. The latest improvements in LiDAR and radar sensors and cameras are expected to drive the highest levels of autonomous driving by providing more precise information for ADAS and AD systems.

Lovati said that ADAS and AD technologies rely heavily on sensors, including LiDAR, radar and cam­eras, and there have been significant advancements in these technologies as more vehicles become equipped with advanced sensor systems.

LiDAR, in particular, has become critical for ADAS and AD because it can create a 3D map of the surrounding environment, allowing it to detect the spatial position, or even the velocity, of the surrounding objects, Lovati said. Two key trends include a push toward 4D LiDAR and the addition of AI algorithms to enhance performance and expand applications.

Radar, also used with other sensors, includ­ing cameras and LiDAR, provide a holistic perception system, Lovati said. Key trends in radar development include improving resolution and range. “This is important, as it allows for more detailed mapping of the environment, providing more precise information for ADAS and autonomous-driving systems,” Lovati said.

There is also a trend to provide more highly integrated radar solutions on a single chip, similar to what’s happening in LiDAR development, as well as sensor fusion in cameras, integrating different types of sensors for a more comprehensive understanding of the environment for better decision-making by the car, translating into improved safety.

Improve­ments in image sensors help design engineers enable advanced features for their applications, including automotive, machine vision, mobile device and security and surveillance designs. These new sen­sors deliver higher resolution, improved high dynamic range, increased pixel density, higher sensitivity and better low-light capabilities.

One of the biggest growth drivers is the automotive sector as automakers continue to add advanced features, particularly ADAS and AD. The top 10 image sensors introduced over the past year include a few examples for automotive applications.

One example is onsemi’s Hyperlux automotive image sensor family with ultra-high dynamic range (HDR) for ADAS and AD solutions, claiming the industry’s lowest power consumption and smallest size, compared with competing devices. The 150-dB HDR enables the sensor to capture high-quality images under the most extreme lighting conditions without sacrificing low-light sensitivity.

STMicro­electronics introduced two image sensors, targeting driver-monitoring systems (DMSes). These include a hybrid rolling and global-shutter image sensor for applications like passenger safety-belt checks, vital-sign monitoring, child-left detection, gesture recognition and high-quality video/picture recording, and an advanced global-shutter image sensor for DMS designs that leverages the company’s 3D chip technology and in-house investment in manufacturing advanced 3D-stacked BSI 3D image sensors.

Visit here for the May/June issue.