Advanced Entertainment and Communication Networking Based on Fiber Optics for Vehicle Applications

The rising complexity of entertainment- and communication components in automobiles requires system solutions which are likely to consist of several separated devices, even in the future. Increasing demands with regard to system diagnostics and electromagnetic interference on the one hand and the necessity to lower system costs on the other force automotive industries to develop concepts avoiding any redundancies and to optimize data links for component interconnections. As the car is a particularly harsh environment for distributed audio-/ video communication systems (limited space, high levels of electromagnetic radiation that interferes with analog signals) fibre optical network solutions can be a suitable way to solve the problem. The paper consists of a situation analysis in the mobile communication network field, presents a network set up on the AES/EBU audio standard and D2B OPTICAL protocol to transmit source and control data simultaneously on the same fibre and concludes with strategies for future applications.