Developing next-generation automotive infotainment systems

By Petri Talala – Director, Embedded & Automotive Business, Symbio (petri.talala@symbio.com)

Want it or not, the modern multimedia and graphics technology we are used to seeing on mobile devices and consumer electronics is making inroads into the car dashboard. As a result, the user experience has become one of the most sought after differentiators among car manufacturers. The driver is not the only beneficiary in the new game. Software-related economies of scale enable car manufacturers to economize by leveraging and applying multimedia platform technologies across different car models. Nevertheless, there remain quite a few technological challenges to be solved by specialized engineering companies.

Leveraging industry standards to accelerate time-to-market

Computing power to produce vehicle and driving information has been a commodity in cars over the years. The development focus of future infotainment platforms is on lower-cost CPU, smaller Flash and RAM footprints, and predictable response times, especially for modern graphics rendering power and quality, which are key in producing real-time complex and parallel computing tasks on the dashboard.

Performance and scalability of an infotainment system has a direct impact on the quality of real-time graphics content and user experience. Imagine a situation where a navigation map does not render properly on the screen or the lead time to access directions to your destination takes too long. These are just a few examples of frustrating user experiences.

Customized rendering implementation including rich multimedia features is not cost-effective in the long term. Industry standards and open multimedia interfaces defined by the Khronos Consortium and the GENIVI alliance for an In-Vehicle Infotainment reference platform (the GENIVI platform) offer cost-effective solutions for infotainment system implementation that provides quicker time-to-market.

High quality software implementation is key to safety

A well-performing hardware graphics platform requires a well implemented software stack and UI framework to offer great overall user experience in infotainment systems. On the other hand, it is impossible to define a one-fits-all infotainment platform solution. Customization and variation exists between car manufacturers and on some occasions between different models of a particular car manufacturer. Some of the most important engineering skills and expertise contributing to robust performance and ease of use include:

• Implementation quality and reliability of software driver(s). Even the most powerful graphics hardware can be the slowest performing solution without optimized and reliable software driver stack with immediate impact on usability and stability of the infotainment system and applications.

• Optimized driver footprint and memory consumption for specific graphics technologies (OpenGL ES for 3D graphics and OpenVG for vector graphics) and overall system including video and audio in addition to graphics. Implementation of a native graphics driver can consume up to 10-times less memory and computing resources compared to some alternative solutions (e.g. made in Java or Flash) and therefore have an immediate positive effect on usability of the infotainment system.

• System critical issues such as alerts must be displayed without delay and not cause the system to crash. Real-time warning messages and alerts must be sent to the driver even if CPU/GPU is 100% engaged in other rendering and computing tasks.

• Pixel rate and 2D blitting speed and quality is an important factor. Some applications such as Google Maps are still using 2D bitmaps for content and therefore it is critical to optimize 2D blitting operations (alpha blending, rotation, etc.) for maximum usability of the system.

Toward a greener future

Advanced software technology in electronics will drive future product innovation in the automotive industry for the next 10 years. Today electronics and software makes up close to half of the overall vehicle cost, which puts pressure for improving the return on investment in the automotive instrument cluster. The development of vehicle infotainment systems is geared towards a standardized manufacturing process leveraging the software components in the development of model specific dashboards. By varying feature sets across different car models the car manufacturers are able to meet the expectations of the sophisticated consumer in a cost effective way. More cost savings will arise from reduced material in the production process and model specific prototype development. This is great news to the automotive industry as well as to the consumers’ growing environmental concerns. Technology is a key enabler for achieving a greener tomorrow in the automotive industry.