Displaying items by tag: connected cars

Continental, Ericsson, Nissan, NTT DOCOMO, OKI and Qualcomm Technologies, announced plans to carry out their first Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) trials in Japan. The objective is to validate and demonstrate the benefits of C-V2X using direct communication technology defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) in their Release 14 specifications.

The trials are designed to show the enhanced range reliability and latency benefits of C-V2X direct communications operated in 5GHz band. Additionally, the C-V2X trials are designed to demonstrate the complementary benefits of network-based communications utilizing LTE-Advanced (LTE-A).

The trial results will help develop the ecosystem by providing inputs to the relevant stakeholders, including ITS-related organizations and government agencies, as we prepare for the connected car of the future and the industry’s evolutionary transition towards 5G New Radio (NR), the new global cellular standard being defined in 3GPP.

While complementing other Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) sensors, such as radar, lidar, and camera systems, C-V2X provides non-line-of-sight (NLOS) low latency awareness with longer range and cloud capabilities, and is designed to extend a vehicle’s ability to see, hear and communicate further down the road, even at blind intersections.

C-V2X radio technology, a state-of-the-art cellular technology, is being validated for global deployments, and leverages the upper layer protocols developed by the automotive industry over years of research to support new advanced end-to-end use cases. C-V2X direct communications provide enhanced range and reliability without relying on cellular network assistance or coverage.

Preparation work is well underway with the trial expected to begin in 2018 and the use cases are designed to focus on Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V), Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) and Vehicle-to-Pedestrian (V2P) direct communications, as well as Vehicle-to-Network (V2N) operations over cellular network-based wide area communications with cloud access. 

For the field trials, Continental will utilize the Qualcomm® C-V2X Reference Design, which features the Qualcomm® 9150 C-V2X chipset with integrated Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) capability to build connected car systems and integrate the systems into Nissan vehicles.

Nissan will perform V2X use case selection and develop test scenarios with key performance indicators (KPIs) for C-V2X technology validation. OKI, one of the leading companies in ITS, will bring their expertise in roadside unit (RSU) infrastructure and applications to demonstrate V2I as a viable technology for advanced traffic applications by integrating the Qualcomm® 9150 C-V2X chipset into their RSU.

Ericsson will join the V2N use case discussion, considering a combination of direct communication and LTE-A network technologies. NTT DOCOMO will provide an LTE-A network and V2N applications to demonstrate the benefits of complementary use of network-based communications for a variety of advanced automotive informational safety use cases.

“We are pleased to be working alongside such a dynamic group of forward-thinking companies to demonstrate the capabilities of C-V2X technology in the first announced Japanese trials,” said Nakul Duggal, vice president of product management, Qualcomm Technologies. “With its direct communications capabilities, C-V2X is ideally suited to be an important factor in facilitating enhanced safety consciousness and driver assistance. This Japan trial is a milestone in the global deployment of C-V2X technology which is expected to be featured in production vehicles by 2020.”

Japanese automotive manufacturer DENSO Corporation, along with Ericsson, Intel Corporation, Japanese telecom company NTT DOCOMO and Toyota announced that they have initiated the formation of the Automotive Edge Computing Consortium.

The objective of the consortium is to develop an ecosystem for connected cars to support emerging services such as intelligent driving, the creation of maps with real-time data and driving assistance based on cloud computing.

It is estimated that the data volume between vehicles and the cloud will reach 10 exabytes per month around 2025, approximately 10,000 times larger than the present volume. This expected increase will trigger the need for new architectures of network and computing infrastructure to support distributed resources and topology-aware storage capacity. The architectures will be compliant with applicable standards that require collaboration on a local and global scale.

The consortium will focus on increasing network capacity to accommodate automotive big data in a reasonable fashion between vehicles and the cloud by means of edge computing and more efficient network design.

It will define requirements and develop use cases for emerging mobile devices with a particular focus on the automotive industry, bringing them to standards bodies, industry consortiums and solution providers. The consortium will also encourage the development of best practices for the distributed and layered computing approach recommended by the members.

In the coming months, the aforementioned companies will initiate activities to invite relevant global technology leaders and expand the consortium.

Huawei signed a pivotal Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on March 20 with MetaSystem, a world leader in the UBI (usage-based insurance) market at CeBIT 2017 in Hannover, Germany. The signing will see Huawei work with MetaSystem Italy to develop connected car applications and provide a variety of end-to-end UBI solutions for the industry.

The rapid development of the IoT industry has opened up more market opportunities, including for the connected car. Huawei plans to collaborate with MetaSystem to promote the development and transformation of the connected car industry, assist vehicle companies in digital transformation, and provide fully connected vehicle experiences.

The MoU describes the companies' plan to provide end-to-end UBI solutions for clients by integrating MetaSystem's connected car devices and applications with Huawei's OceanConnect IoT platform. In addition, Huawei and MetaSystem have committed to developing various connected car applications and fostering innovative development by utilizing the open capabilities of the OceanConnect platform.

"The IoT industry is expected to have a bright future with tremendous business potential. However, IoT can be made a success only by the combined efforts of upstream and downstream partners,” said Zhang Xiwei, VP of the Cloud Core Network Product Line at Huawei.

“The cooperation between Huawei OceanConnect IoT platform and MetaSystem enables us to provide better connected car applications for the industry. We look forward to working with more partners to provide diverse IoT applications for the industry and users.”

MetaSystem CEO Giuseppe Simonazzi highlighted that an increasing number of vehicles are being switched from traditional engines to either hybrid or electric engines. In addition to this, the concept of Vehicles as a Service (VaaS) is gaining popularity, which increases demand for sensors and other on-board equipment.

"Huawei is the leading global provider of innovative ICT infrastructure while MetaSystem is an expert in the field of automotive electronics, and telematics applications. I believe our partnership has now everything for a progressive success on global markets," said Giuseppe Simonazzi.

Samsung has extended its reach into the ‘connected car’ space by purchasing U.S auto parts manufacturer Harman International Industries for a whopping $8 billion. It is the largest deal in Samsung’s history, and could help the Korean tech giant move past the exploding Galaxy Note 7 smartphone fiasco that has hurt Samsung’s reputation and is expected to cost billions of dollars.

Samsung said in a statement that its board had approved the all-cash purchase of the Connecticut-based auto firm for $112 a share. The deal will give Samsung – currently the world’s largest producer of smartphones – a “significant presence” in the global market for online connected auto parts, the company said. Samsung is hoping to complete the deal by the third quarter of 2017 after getting approvals from Harman shareholders and regulators.

“Harman perfectly complements Samsung in terms of technologies, products and solutions, and joining forces is a natural extension of the automotive strategy we have been pursuing for some time," Samsung vice chairman Kwon Oh-Hyun said in a statement. "Harman immediately establishes a strong foundation for Samsung to grow our automotive platform."

With Harman’s expertise in high-end audio systems and other internet-enabled entertainment features for global automakers such as General Motors and Fiat Chrysler, Samsung Electronics will be able to combine it with its own expertise in mobile, home appliances and semiconductors. Samsung is making clear moves outside of its key business of mobile handsets as the market slows.

“Samsung is trying to fill what it lacks by tapping into a new growth engine,” said HMC Investment Securities analyst Greg Roh, AFP reported. “We can say that Samsung took a big step in gaining a competitive edge in the car infotainment sector.”

Roh said the search for a new growth engine for Samsung would also likely be aimed at giving the company a boost amid a power transfer to the scion Lee Jae-Yong. The 48-year-old Lee, who is already vice chairman of Samsung Electronics and has seen his influence grow since his father, Samsung patriarch Lee Kun-Hee, suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized in 2014, joined the board last month during an extraordinary shareholders' meeting.

Samsung last year established a new automotive electronics business team, which will work closely with Harman. The company says the market for smart, connected electric vehicles including self-driving cars will grow by an average of 13 percent each year to 186.4 billion dollars by 2025. The Samsung group dabbled in the car manufacturing business in the 1990s but was soon forced to sell the business to the French carmaker Renault in the wake of the crippling 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.

The Renault-Nissan Alliance and Microsoft Corp. have signed a global, multiyear agreement to partner on next-generation technologies to advance connected driving experiences worldwide. The companies will work together to develop next-generation connected services for cars powered by Microsoft Azure, one of the company’s intelligent cloud offerings.

These new services will improve customer experience via advanced navigation, predictive maintenance and vehicle centric services, remote monitoring of car features, external mobile experiences and over-the-air updates.

“A car is becoming increasingly connected, intelligent and personal,” said Ogi Redzic, Renault-Nissan Alliance, senior vice-president, Connected Vehicles and Mobility Services. “Partnering with Microsoft allows us to accelerate the development of the associated key technologies needed to enable scenarios our customers want and build all-new ones they haven’t even imagined. We aim to become the provider of connected mobility for everyone with one single global platform.”

The Renault-Nissan Alliance is pioneering autonomous driving and connectivity features on mainstream, mass-market vehicles at affordable prices. The Alliance aims to develop connectivity technologies and features to support the launch of more than 10 vehicles with autonomous driving technology by 2020 with services to maximize better use of newly found in-car free time.

Renault-Nissan will develop and launch new connected services and applications that make it easier for people to stay connected to work, entertainment and social networks, and offer vehicle centric services that will simplify and enhance engagement with the car through usage-based information, remote access, remote diagnostics and preventive maintenance.

Renault-Nissan selected Azure in part because of its enterprise-grade security and Microsoft’s rigorous commitment to compliance. In addition, Azure supports multiple operating systems, programming languages and tools, providing flexibility and choice to build a common platform for Renault-Nissan to deploy services to both Alliance brands.

“While the connected car experience is in its infancy, we believe there’s so much potential to dramatically change the industry. We are partnering to accelerate Renault-Nissan’s mobile and cloud strategies and unlock new experiences for their customers,” said Jean-Philippe Courtois, executive vice president and president, Microsoft Global Sales, Marketing and Operations, Microsoft.

One of the world’s leading IT security companies has issued a warning about connected cars, indicating that cars connected to the internet in the future will be at high risk of being hacked, which highlights the dilemma, which vehicle manufacturers will face in the coming years. The idea of connected cars is exciting and full of potential, but carmakers will have to keep security risk in mind when manufacturing them with new, potentially hackable technology.

The founder of Kaspersky Lab, Eugene Kaspersky, recently said that vehicles are “more safe but less secure” now that they carry a vast selection of gadgets such as safety sensors and GPS trackers, plus music-streaming capabilities and high-speed internet links. While these features are certainly desirable to have in a vehicle and do contribute to safety and convenience, the technology also opens the door for more cyber-intruders to access information and find “more and more methods to attack private cars,” says Mr. Kaspersky.

As a former Soviet intelligence officer, Kaspersky has a vast knowledge of security issues, and feels that it will take too long for governments, carmakers, and all parties involved with smart cars and smart technology to implement ways to protect vehicles from cyber attackers. In an interview with Financial Times, Kaspersky said: “For a long period of time, the cars will be vulnerable.”

He further added: “The definition of good security is that the attack must cost more than the possible damage. We can reach this level – but I am afraid that may be for a decade, maybe less.”

According to the trade body SMMT, more than half of the cars sold in the UK in 2015 (roughly 1.5 million) were connected with internet safety systems. Furthermore, Gartner reports that by the end of the decade, about 250 million vehicles will be connected to the internet. Because of heightened connectivity in cars, cyber-hackers will be able to take advantage of this by accessing one part of a car to take control of another, by means of the 50-60 computers that most modern cars feature today. These computers generally control music, temperature, brake control and assisted steering, communicating across a platform known as the Controller Area Network or CAN Bus.

“Unfortunately, the bad guys are getting smarter,” says Kaspersky. In the interview, he refers to a shining example of the security risks that we can expect in the future when connected cars become a reality. In the United States last year, during a controlled exercise to test the possibilities of a cyber attack in a connected car, hackers were able to take remote control of a Jeep Cherokee through its radio and were able to disable its steering and braking. It’s a shocking reality that all vehicle manufacturers have to consider.

The tests revealed a real danger with connected cars; therefore, 1.4 million vehicles by Fiat Chrysler were recalled, triggering fear throughout the industry, because suddenly accessing cars externally had become scarily possible – something manufacturers hadn’t paid much attention to in the past. With technology, it’s common for convenience to overshadow safety. Kaspersky said that because of the international sourcing of car components, international co-ordination is required to protect vehicles from attacks.

“Companies outsource the software… and software engineering doesn’t have borders,” said Kaspersky in the interview. “The governments, the carmakers, they understand the problem, finally,” he added, referring to the formation of a European Commission working group to consider new legislation to make vehicles more secure. Additionally, in the United States, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers has reportedly set up a center for carmakers to share information about cyber attacks which others can learn from.