AUTONOMOUS & CONNECTED VEHICLES
Optimizing in-vehicle data networks CHRIS RUSCH, BERT BERGNER | TE CONNECTIVITY
Physical channels have limits that affect the practicalities of automotive network architecture and communication protocols. Here’s the lowdown on current work aimed at breaking bandwidth bottlenecks. It has become a truism that we have an insatiable appetite for data. Not so obvious is the effect our need for data has upon in-vehicle communication systems. Advanced safety, security, and convenience functions put demands on the already crowded data network in the car. For these functions, even one missed byte of data can have a profound impact on vehicle operation. The evolution toward advanced driver assist systems (ADAS) and automated driving functions has made high-speed data transmission lanes increasingly relevant to vehicle safety. OEMs must now consider the limitations of physical channels when defining the architecture and selecting the communication protocol. Safety considerations make the trade-off between the data channel (the wires and connectors) and the communications protocol performance (the ICs and software) more important for finding a cost-optimized combination of both. This higher complexity and the increasing number of data-links in vehicles lead to a new generation of automotive architectures. Fragmented vs. converged architectural approach. A modern luxury vehicle can contain up to 100 electronic control units (ECUs)
Classic
based on multiple proprietary operating systems. These ECUs handle tasks ranging from simple control programs to running complex, real-time, multifunctional embedded platforms that support, for example, increasingly sophisticated infotainment and driver assistance systems. The ADAS functions that will ultimately lead to fully automated driving are growing more complex. As a result, traditional ECUbased architectures are reaching their limits. Thus OEMs must develop new concepts to manage the high levels of complexity and data through-put. By clustering functions into domains and converging ECUs, OEMs can optimize the weight of the harness and reduce the complexity of connections. Such measures could reduce the number of components and the overall cost. Service-oriented architectures. The integration of ADAS applications is one of the most significant challenges OEMs face when designing vehicle architectures. High-resolution cameras and high-performance sensors for radar and lidar generate and require an immense amount of data. Within the vehicle, that data must traverse several meters of cable and be processed by powerful computing systems. For safety reasons, ADAS clusters feature a redundant computing platform. High-priority ADAS data also goes to a secondary processor physically separated from the primary ADAS.
Converged Zone control
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Central computer
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DESIGN WORLD — EE NETWORK
8 • 2020
The difference between the classical fragmented architecture approach and the new converged architecture.
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