Browse Topic: Infotainment systems
Despite a noticeable turn away from the wall-to-wall automotive tech wizardary that was so prevalent in recent years and towards robots and other forms of “physical AI,” CES 2026 remained a good place for Qualcomm Technologies Inc. to deliver updates to the media on its various mobility-related technologies. Qualcomm invited SAE Media to Las Vegas to learn about the updates and cover other CES news in person.
In-vehicle communication among different vehicle electronic controller units (ECU) to run several applications (I.e. to propel the vehicle or In-vehicle Infotainment), CAN (Controller Area Network) is most frequently used. Given the proprietary nature and lack of standardization in CAN configurations, which are often not disclosed by manufacturers, the process of CAN reverse engineering becomes highly complex and cumbersome. Additionally, the scarcity of publicly accessible data on electric vehicles, coupled with the rapid technological advancements in this domain, has resulted in the absence of a standardized and automated methodology for reverse engineering the CAN. This process is further complicated by the diverse CAN configurations implemented by various Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). This paper presents a manual approach to reverse engineer the series CAN configuration of an electric vehicle, considering no vehicle information is available to testing engineers. To execute reverse engineering, the CAN data log is to be taken from the OBD-II port by systematically identifying and mapping the CAN with various ECUs interfaced with that CAN line. Driver actions and continuous data logged from the OBD-II port are cross-referenced with CAN data to determine the byte order of signals and message frames. The signals derived from one vehicle use scenario (driving) are then validated against another scenario (charging) to ensure consistency and accuracy.
With the rapid advancement of connected vehicle technologies, infotainment Electronic Control Units (ECUs) have become central to user interaction and connectivity within modern vehicles. However, this enhanced functionality has introduced new vulnerabilities to cyberattacks. This paper explores the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in enhancing the cybersecurity framework of infotainment ECUs. The study introduces AI-powered modules for threat detection and response, presents an integrated architecture, and validates performance through simulation using MATLAB, CANoe, and NS-3. This approach addresses real-time intrusion detection, anomaly analysis, and voice command security. Key benefits include zero-day exploit resistance, scalability, and continuous protection via OTA updates. The paper references real-world automotive cyberattack cases such as OTA vulnerability patches, Connected Drive exploits, and Uconnect hack, emphasizing the critical need for AI-enabled proactive cybersecurity frameworks.
Nowadays, digital instrument clusters and modern infotainment systems are crucial parts of cars that improve the user experience and offer vital information. It is essential to guarantee the quality and dependability of these systems, particularly in light of safety regulations such as ISO 26262. Nevertheless, current testing approaches frequently depend on manual labor, which is laborious, prone to mistakes, and challenging to scale, particularly in agile development settings. This study presents a two-phase framework that uses machine learning (ML), computer vision (CV), and image processing techniques to automate the testing of infotainment and digital cluster systems. The NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit and high-resolution cameras are used in Phase 1's open loop testing setup to record visual data from infotainment and instrument cluster displays. Without requiring input from the system being tested, this phase concentrates on both static and dynamic user interface analysis, including screen transitions, animations, and error messages. Among the methods used are optical character recognition (OCR) for on-screen text validation, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for screen classification, and object detection for user interface verification. Automated anomaly detection and interface behavior evaluation are made easier with this method. Phase 2 suggests integrating a Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) simulator to transform the system into a closed-loop testing environment. The vision-based system will assess system responsiveness and end-to-end behavior, while the HIL setup will produce simulated user inputs and vehicle network data (such as CAN, Ethernet). This thorough framework tackles important issues like complex system integration, multimodal interaction testing, and managing cognitive load. In order to support the creation of safer, more user-friendly infotainment and digital cluster systems that are in line with Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) standards, it seeks to decrease the amount of manual testing effort, increase test coverage, and improve consistency.
While electric powertrains are driving 48V adoption, OEMs are realizing that xEV and ICE vehicles can benefit from a shift away from 12-volt architectures. In every corner of the automotive power engineering world, there are discussions and debates over the merits of 48V power networks vs. legacy 12V power networks. The dialogue started over 20 years ago, but now the tone is more serious. It's not a case of everything old is new again, but the result of a growing appetite for more electrical power in vehicles. Today's vehicles - and the coming generations - require more power for their ADAS and other safety systems, infotainment systems and overall passenger comfort systems. To satisfy the growing demand for low-voltage power, it is necessary to boost the capacity of the low-voltage power network by two or three times that of the late 20th century. Delivering power is more efficient at a higher voltage, and today, 48V is the consensus voltage for that higher level.
In the early days of computers, interfaces were paper printouts or blinking lights, but as the technology matured, the graphical user interface (GUI) quickly became the standard.
The aircraft cabin plays a crucial role in airline differentiation strategies, particularly when introducing novel, data-driven services. These services aim to enhance the passenger experience during the flight and to improve cabin crew efficiency in order to reduce workload and ensure continued growth of airline revenue. Digitalization and extensive exchange of information across the entire aircraft transport system have emerged as key enablers for these services. The development of aircraft and aircraft systems that realize these services is characterized by a multi-level development process. Various development levels are considered to initially identify the functions of an aircraft in the air transport system, refine its systems and break them down into their components until a level of detail is reached that allows the implementation of the component functions. In addition to the high complexity, a major challenge in this development is to ensure traceability and consistency across the various development levels. Consequently, Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is increasingly applied in aviation to address these challenges. While numerous MBSE frameworks and methodologies exist, they often overlook the specific requirements of aviation’s multi-level development process. Hence, this paper introduces an MBSE framework tailored to the development of novel, data-driven passenger services, along with the corresponding aircraft systems, across multiple development levels. The framework ensures seamless model-based information flow across all levels by providing a development workflow, which encompasses various viewpoints at each development stage and incorporates aviation-specific regulatory and operational considerations. Additionally, given the digitalized nature of these services and the resulting interconnected systems, relevant cybersecurity information is captured within certain viewpoints at each development level, thereby ensuring the development of secure systems.
This SAE Edge Research Report explores advancements in next-generation mobility, focusing on digitalized and smart cockpits and cabins. It offers literature review, examining current customer experiences with traditional vehicles and future mobility expectations. Key topics include integrating smart cockpit and cabin technologies, addressing challenges in customer and user experience (UX) in digital environments, and discussing strategies for transitioning from traditional vehicles to electric ones while educating customers. User Experience for Digitalized and Smart Cockpits and Cabins of Next-gen Mobility covers both on- and off-vehicle experiences, analyzing complexities in developing and deploying digital products and services with effective user interfaces. Emphasis is placed on meeting UX requirements, gaining user acceptance, and avoiding trust issues due to poor UX. Additionally, the report concludes with suggestions for improving UX in digital products and services for future mobility, offering a summary of insights and actionable recommendations to enhance the UX in automotive technologies. Understanding the correlation between UX, user acceptance, and market success from a UX, design, and human-factor perspective will assist companies in creating customer-facing next-gen products. Click here to access the full SAE EDGETM Research Report portfolio.
Virtualization features such as digital twins and virtual patching can accelerate development and make commercial vehicles more agile and secure. There is one sure-fire way to secure commercial vehicles from cyber-attacks. “You just remove the connectivity,” quipped Brandon Barry, CEO of Block Harbor Cybersecurity and the moderator of a panel session on “cybersecurity of virtual machines” at the SAE COMVEC 2024 conference in Schaumburg, Illinois. Obviously, that train has left the station - commercial vehicles of all types, including trains, are only becoming more automated and connected, which increases the risks for cyber-attacks. “We have very connected vehicles, so attacks can be posed not just through powertrain solutions but also through telemetry, infotainment systems connected to different applications and services, and also through cloud platforms,” said Trisha Chatterjee, current product support and data specialist for fuel cell and hydrogen technology at Accelera by Cummins.
In today’s world, Vehicles are no longer mechanically dominated, with increased complexity, features and autonomous driving capabilities, vehicles are getting connected to internal and external environment e.g., V2I(Vehicle-to-Infrastructure), V2V(Vehicle-to-Vehicle), V2C(Vehicle-to-Cloud) and V2X(Vehicle-to-Everything). This has pushed classical automotive system in background and vehicle components are now increasingly dominated by software’s. Now more focus is made on to increase self-decision-making capabilities of automobile and providing more advance, safe and secure solutions e.g., Autonomous driving, E-mobility, and software driven vehicles, due to which vehicle digitization and lots of sensors inside and outside the vehicle are being used, and automobile are becoming intelligent. i.e., intelligent vehicles with advance safe and secure features but all these advancements come with significant threat of cybersecurity risk. Therefore, providing an automobile that is safe and secure through cyber-attack is also got equal importance. In this paper, we will discuss some of the challenges and key application of cybersecurity in the automotive sector. We will also discuss some possible approaches to address these challenges and enhance the security and privacy of automotive systems. Certain Automotive cybersecurity applications include Secure ECU communication, Digital signature generation and verification, Secure V2X, In-vehicle infotainment (IVI) security, Secure key management and storage, Secure remote vehicle access and control, and Secure over-the-air (OTA) updates. The main challenges for all these applications are to maintain confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of the data, which can be maintained using cryptographic algorithms and key management realized in Hardware Security Module (HSM). The HSM is a specialized Hardware component designed and integrated as a part of advanced microcontroller unit (MCU) architecture, dedicated to implement cryptographic security tasks. HSM provide various solutions for secure boot/authenticated boot, secure communication, secure key storage, certificate management, standard encryption / decryption algorithms, which strengthen the mode of algorithm and implements very robust Secured ECU communication.
Contrary to what you may have heard, Americans are buying more EVs than ever. But they tend to like 'em big. After production delays due to software development issues - a problem that continues to plague automakers from Volkswagen to General Motors - Volvo's EX90 will look to lure families who live for three-row luxury SUVs. Based on a recent media drive in Newport Beach, California, Volvo may still have some work to do. The twin-motor EX90 did impress us with its 510 hp (380 kW), confident handling, leading-edge safety and sparkling high-resolution displays. But a software glitch dinged our test car when a section of its 14.5-inch (37 cm) center screen blanked out. Other journalists reported issues with a phone-based digital key that briefly left one driver stranded when it wouldn't connect with the Volvo. This is another reason I never rely on an automaker's digital key and always ask for a hard backup.
Data privacy questions are particularly timely in the automotive industry as—now more than ever before—vehicles are collecting and sharing data at great speeds and quantities. Though connectivity and vehicle-to-vehicle technologies are perhaps the most obvious, smart city infrastructure, maintenance, and infotainment systems are also relevant in the data privacy law discourse. Facial Recognition Software and Privacy Law in Transportation Technology considers the current legal landscape of privacy law and the unanswered questions that have surfaced in recent years. A survey of the limited recent federal case law and statutory law, as well as examples of comprehensive state data privacy laws, is included. Perhaps most importantly, this report simplifies the balancing act that manufacturers and consumers are performing by complying with data privacy laws, sharing enough data to maximize safety and convenience, and protecting personal information. Click here to access the full SAE EDGETM Research Report portfolio.
The pace of innovation in automotive and heavy-duty transportation is rapidly accelerating. Manufacturers are harnessing advancements in electrification and electronification, ushering in new levels of safety, comfort, infotainment, connectivity, performance, and sustainability.
As head of software engineering at Volvo Cars, Alwin Bakkenes is involved not just with all of the software and electronics in Volvo's vehicles but also the automaker's automotive cloud, the data center that trains Volvo's algorithms, the connectivity pipeline and software updates as well as interactions with Volvo's autonomous driving software development subsidiary Zenseact and HaleyTek, a joint venture with ECARX to develop Android-based infotainment systems for Volvo and Polestar. This growing digital footprint gives Volvo an array of tools to improve its future vehicles, something Bakkenes made clear when speaking with SAE Media at the 2024 NVIDIA GTC event in San Jose in March. Volvo started working with NVIDIA around eight years ago and first used the NVIDIA DRIVE Orin system-on-a-chip (SoC) technology in the updated XC90 SUV, introduced in 2022. In 2023, Volvo built a new 22,000 sq m (236,806 sq ft) software testing center in Sweden at a cost of around SEK 300 million (U.S. $28.4 million).
The next generation of digital cockpits requires modern architectures to be successful and affordable. This paper provides an in-depth view on the future of digital cockpit architectures. The currently emerging architectures are explored with two main points in focus: The key experiences that drive customer expectations and the options to cost-effectively meet those expectations—while keeping the vehicle affordable. Modern architectures rely on middleware services. Well-designed middleware services allow for an efficient and reusable approach across different model lines and market segments. The paper presents this approach. The new architectures also lead to a transformation of the partner ecosystem between original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and component suppliers. OEMs try to lever this system while maintaining control over their offerings. These changes transform the traditional semiconductor industry as a whole. The reasons for this transformation and why it is necessary to meet the needs of a zonal architecture is examined. The paper finishes with a look at how cloud-based services and content can be incorporated while providing a unique brand experience.
ChatGPT has entered the car. At CES 2024, Volkswagen and technology partner Cerence introduced an update to IDA, VW's in-car voice assistant, so it can now use ChatGPT to expand what's possible using voice commands in vehicles. VW said the ChatGPT bot will be available in Europe in current MEB and MQB evo models from VW Group brands that currently use the IDA voice assistant. That includes some members of the ID family - the ID.7, ID.4, ID.5 and ID.3 - as well as the new Tiguan, Passat and Golf models. VW brands Seat, Škoda, Cupra and VW Commercial Vehicles also will get IDA integration. VW hopes to bring IDA to other markets, including North America, but did not make any timing announcements.
CES 2024 offers a busy look at the software-definied-vehicle future. For a technology set to define our automotive future for years to come, it's surprising that not everyone in the industry can agree on what a software-defined vehicle actually is. It's not controversial to say that SDVs need to be able to adjust - or define - some aspect of a vehicle's performance through software. It's the outer limits of how this works that can prove challenging to define.
In an increasingly electrified world, there's still a need for 12-volt batteries and a low-voltage electrical architecture in vehicles. Clarios, which provides the low-voltage architecture for around a third of all vehicles in the world, sees room to grow in the electrified future. Connected vehicles, for example, bring new expectations for what a low-voltage system has to provide, including higher electrical loads. This energy is used for OTA updates when the car is not running, for example, or powering larger infotainment screens. SAE Media editor-in-chief Sebastian Blanco spoke with Clarios president and CEO Mark Wallace and Federico Morales-Zimmermann, group vice president and general manager of original equipment, during a roundtable discussion with multiple journalists. The following Q&A from that event has been edited.
Engineers like to know what customers think about a vehicle. Now, drivers of the all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning and Mustang Mach-E can oblige via a new system that channels select customer comments to engineers. F-150 Lightning fullsize pickup truck and Mustang Mach-E SUV owners in the U.S. can pass along opinions via a 45-second voice message after selecting “record feedback” through the settings-general menu on the infotainment touchscreen. “We want to hear the customer's voice. Ford does customer clinics and events, but this is a different way to capture customer feedback,” Donna Dickson, chief engineer of the Ford Mustang Mach-E, said in an interview with SAE Media.
I know nothing more about artificial intelligence (AI) than what I read and what learned people tell me. I know it's supposed to bring new sophistication to all manner of processes and technologies, including automated driving. So, when a driverless robotaxi operated by GM's Cruise plowed into a road section of freshly poured cement in San Francisco, it raised questions about recently beleaguered Cruise. My mind wandered to AI, which many AV compute “stacks” are touted to leverage in abundance. Driving into wet cement isn't intelligent. Did somebody need to train the vehicle's AV stack specifically to recognize wet cement? If that's how it works, I'd prefer not to bet my life on whether some fairly oddball happenstance (is the term ‘edge case’ not cool anymore?) had been accounted for in that particular version of the AD system's algorithm running that particular day.
Mercedes-Benz developed an in-house computer operating system to join an all-new vehicle platform architecture to enhance automated driving, OTA updates and other features. Mercedes-Benz revealed in late February that it is developing its own computer operating system, dubbed MB.OS, which it said will be standardized across the company's entire model portfolio when deployment begins “mid-decade” in concert with the introduction of the equally new Mercedes Modular Architecture (MMA) vehicle platform. The MB.OS will have full access to all vehicle domains, including infotainment, automated driving, body and comfort, vehicle dynamics and battery charging. Based on a chip-to-cloud architecture, the company asserted MB.OS “is designed to connect the major aspects of the company's value chain, including development, production, omni-channel commerce and services - effectively making it an operating system for the entire Mercedes-Benz business.” The MB.OS architecture is completely updateable to enable rapid product upgrades and is “deliberately open for selected partners,” the company said. It also discreetly added that the new system is planned to “enhance customer lifetime value” by facilitating customer purchases such as content, services and vehicle functionalities. That strategy has been shown by competing automakers to enable certain vehicle features, for example, on a subscription-type basis.
One chip, multiple benefits. That's the claim made by U.S. semiconductor company Qualcomm Technologies Inc. about its new, scalable system-on-a-chip (SoC) product family, called Snapdragon Ride Flex. Unveiled at CES2023 and due to enter the market in early 2024, Snapdragon Flex is the auto industry's first scalable family of SoCs that can run a digital cockpit and ADAS features simultaneously, according to the company. Snapdragon Ride Flex is the latest member of the Snapdragon SoC family. Qualcomm's first-generation Ride Platforms are currently available in commercialized vehicles. Newer generations, which include the Ride Vision stack that can handle ADAS applications, are being tested by Tier 1s. They are expected to arrive on MY2025 vehicles from various OEMs, according to Qualcomm.
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