Historically, the long development time required to produce a
new automobile has meant that the electronics in that vehicle might
lag the state-of-the-art by several years. For traditional vehicle
electronics, this was certainly an appropriate delay, ensuring
through extensive testing and qualification that the quality and
reliability of the electronic systems met rigorous standards.
However, with the growing consumer-oriented electronics content in
today's vehicles, it is becoming more difficult for the
automotive manufacturers to meet consumers' expectations with
older technology. Couple this with the fast-paced consumer product
cycle, typically nine to eighteen and the result is increasing
pressure on the vehicle manufacturers from after-market electronics
suppliers, who can update their product lines as fast as the
component manufacturers can produce new models.
One of the technologies emerging from the Society of Automotive
Engineers' (SAE) intelligent transportation systems (ITS)
efforts may provide the automotive manufacturers with a solution
for bridging the disparity between the automotive and consumer
component development cycles. The ITS data bus (IDB), a serial
communication bus being defined jointly by the SAE and the Consumer
Electronics Manufacturers Association (CEMA), is intended to
provide a common network interface for consumer components which
may be integrated into ITS-related systems in vehicles. This paper
will discuss this trend in automotive electronics, and how the IDB
will enable the automotive manufacturers to make consumer-oriented
electronic component decisions at anytime during the life cycle of
the vehicle, ensuring their ability to provide their customers with
attractive, state-of-the-art technology in their vehicles