One day I’ll be Luke Skywalker

Cyril Clocher

What happens when you blend ADAS with infotainment? Guest post by Cyril Clocher, business manager for automotive processors at Texas Instruments

As we all begin preparing for our trek to Vegas for CES 2015, I would like my young friends (born in the 70s, of course) to reflect on their impressions of the first episode of Lucas’s trilogy back in 1977. On my side, I perfectly remember thinking one day I would be Luke Skywalker.

The eyes of young boys and girls were literally amazed by this epic space opera and particularly by technologies used by our heroes to fight the Galactic Empire. You have to remember it was an era where we still used rotary phones and GPS was in its infancy. So you can imagine how impactful it was for us to see our favorite characters using wireless electronic gadgets with revolutionary HMIs such as natural voice recognition, gesture controls or touch screens; droids speaking and enhancing human intelligence; and autonomous vehicles traveling the galaxy safely while playing chess with a Wookiee. Now you’re with me…

But instead of becoming Luke Skywalker a lot of us realized that we would have a bigger impact by inventing or engineering these technologies and by transforming early concepts into real products we all use today. As a result, smartphones and wireless connectivity are now in our everyday lives; the Internet of Things (IoT) is getting more popular in applications such as activity trackers that monitor personal metrics; and our kids are more used to touch screens than mice or keyboards, and cannot think of on-line gaming without gesture control. In fact, I just used voice recognition to upgrade the Wi-Fi plan from my Telco provider.

But the journey is not over yet. Our generation has still to deliver an autonomous vehicle that is green, safe, and fun to control – I think the word “drive” will be obsolete for such a vehicle.

The automotive industry has taken several steps to achieve this exciting goal, including integration of advanced and connected in-car infotainment systems in more models as well as a number of technologies categorized under Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) that can create a safer and unique driving experience. From more than a decade, Texas Instruments has invested in infotainment and ADAS: “Jacinto” and TDAx automotive processors as well as the many analog companion chips supporting these trends.

"Jacinto 6 EP" and "Jacinto 6 Ex"
infotainment processors

A unique approach of TI is our capability to leverage best of both worlds for non-safety critical features, and to provide a seamless integration of informational ADAS functions into existing infotainment systems so the vehicle better informs and warns the driver. We announced that capability at SAE Convergence in Detroit in October 2014 with the “Jacinto 6 Ex” processor (DRA756), which contains powerful CPU, graphics multimedia, and radio cores with differentiated vision co-processors, called embedded vision engines (EVE), and additional DSPs that perform the complex ADAS processing.

For the TI’s automotive team, the CES 2015 show is even more exciting than in previous years, as we’ve taken our concept of informational ADAS to the next step. With joint efforts and hard work from both TI and QNX teams, we’ve together implemented a real informational ADAS system running the QNX CAR™ Platform for Infotainment on a “Jacinto 6 Ex” processor.

I could try describing this system in detail, but just like the Star Wars movies, it’s best to experience our “Jacinto 6 Ex” and QNX CAR Platform-based system in person. Contact your TI or QNX representative today and schedule a meeting to visit our private suite at CES at the TI Village (N115-N119) or to immerse yourself in a combined IVI, cluster, megapixel surround view, and DLP® based HUD display with augmented reality running on a single “Jacinto 6 Ex” SoC demonstration. And don't forget to visit the QNX booth (2231), where you can see the QNX reference vehicle running a variety of ADAS and infotainment applications on “Jacinto 6” processors.

Integrated cockpit featuring DLP powered HUD and QNX CAR Platform running on a single “Jacinto 6 Ex” SoC.

One day I’ll experience Skywalker’s life as I will no doubt have the opportunity to control an intelligent and autonomous vehicle with my biometrics, voice, and gestures while riding with my family to the movie theater playing chess with my grandkids, not yet a Wookiee.

TI’s Jacinto 5 automotive processor selected for Audi's “MIB High” infotainment system

Well, it couldn't happen to a nicer technology partner. Yesterday, Texas Instruments announced that the QNX-based MIB High system, the next-generation infotainment platform for Audi vehicles, is the first automotive system to incorporate the TI Jacinto 5 automotive infotainment processor. According to the TI press release, the Jacinto 5 plays a key role in the system’s architecture, which consist of a multimedia applications unit and a highly integrated radio-and-car-control unit.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Jacinto 5, it’s an automotive-qualified multicore processor based on an ARM Cortex-A8 core. The processor integrates a variety of automotive peripherals and connectivity options.

QNX’s role in the MIB High was revealed in 2011, when e.solutions announced that QNX Software Systems had been chosen to supply the system’s OS and multimedia engine. See my blog post on that announcement, where I explain why the architecture of MIB High is so cool.

And if you’d like to check out the MIB High first hand, may I suggest you take one of these for a test drive.

So many cores — what to do with them all?

Multi-core processors are clearly becoming the mainstream for automotive infotainment systems. TI’s OMAP processors and their automotive derivatives use dual A15 cores, Freescale's i.MX 6 boasts up to four A9 cores, and other companies also have multi-core architectures in production or on near-term roadmaps. Quad-core A15 processors are just around the corner. As a percentage of overall die area, the CPU core is relatively small, so SoC producers can lay down multiple cores with little impact on cost. GPUs, on the other hand, represent a large percentage of the die area and, as such, are typically instantiated only once per SoC.

Realistically, infotainment systems should no longer be CPU bound. In fact, when looking at leading-edge SoCs available today, many are asking what to do with all that extra CPU just sitting there, waiting to do something. At first blush, the more obvious areas to merge are infotainment and ADAS, or infotainment and digital instrument clusters. This is, at the highest level, pretty much a no-brainer so long as the safety requirements mandated for clusters and ADAS can be achieved.

Thing is, automotive safety standards like ISO 26262 require system-level certifications. As such, the entire system needs to be certified. Already a daunting task for a standalone ADAS system or digital instrument cluster, the problem can become unmanageable when you include the full infotainment stack.

Think about your car. Your cluster does a handful of operations whereas your infotainment system runs a full navigation system, voice recognition, multimedia, device connectivity, and, in the connected case, cloud services. People don't get frustrated trying to figure out how your cluster works (I hope), and they don't give up trying to figure out how fast the car is moving. The same cannot be said for many infotainment systems shipping today. Ask your mother to pair her cell phone to her car. I dare you! The complexity involved in attempting to certify a system that combines infotainment and cluster functions is orders of magnitude higher than certifying a cluster alone.

All is not lost, however. Virtualization offers an elegant way to isolate multiple systems running on a single multi-core SoC. By using virtualization you could seek certification on the cluster without burdening yourself with the infotainment problem and collapse two formerly discrete systems onto one SoC. You would save money and probably get a promotion to boot. Just one thing: there is still only one GPU on the die and both the infotainment system and the cluster rely heavily on that single GPU.

Enter Red Bend Software, a long-time QNX CAR Platform partner for FOTA. They have taken the challenge of virtualizing the GPU head-on and successfully demonstrated the QNX CAR Platform and a Crank Software-based digital instrument cluster running on dual displays driven by a single OMAP 5 at Telematics Munich. I saw it and was impressed with how snappy performance was on the infotainment side and how smooth the needles were (60+ fps) on the cluster.


Using virtualization to drive dual displays from a single TI OMAP 5 processor.

According to Red Bend, they have designed a GPU-sharing architecture that enables multiple guest operating systems to access hardware accelerators, including the GPU, providing isolation between the operating systems while having a minimal impact on overall performance (which probably isn't a huge deal considering how many CPU cores are going to be shipping on a single SoC in the near term). It sounds impressive, but seeing is believing.

Red Bend will next show this demo in the TI Suite at CES (N115 in the North Hall). If system consolidation is something that keeps you up at night, you should really stop by to see what they have done.

TI and QNX: driving infotainment forward

Guest post by Robert Tolbert of Texas Instruments Incorporated

Robert Tolbert

My role as a business development and product marketing manager in Texas Instruments’ (TI) automotive infotainment processor business allows me the opportunity to travel the globe, discussing technology with the brightest minds in automotive infotainment.

I've learned that no matter where the discussion begins — replacing the vehicle boot microcontroller in Detroit, choosing between MOST-MLB and Ethernet AVB in Japan, blending FM and DAB radio in Germany, or fire-walling the vehicle CAN bus in Korea — the conversation always loops back to software, or even more pointedly, hardware and software systems. Inevitably, at this point, the customer begins to tense up and I in turn get a chance to relax and explain the value of the well-established relationship between QNX Software Systems and TI.

OEMs and tier one suppliers place an extremely high value on trust, dependability, and commitment to excellence when choosing their partners. Vehicle owners are no different. It is easy for QNX and TI to show OEMs that our longstanding relationship embodies all these attributes.

A matter of trust

Jacinto 6 is designed for advanced 

HMI and navigation, digital and 

analog radio, and multimedia
playback.

QNX Software Systems and TI have been working together for more than 10 years, and the longevity of the relationship is based on the premise that industry-leading automotive infotainment processors (i.e. TI’s DRA74x “Jacinto 6”) and industry leading software platforms (i.e. QNX CAR Platform) are somewhat diminished if they aren’t harmonized to take full advantage of all the hardware has to offer.

Once a customer decides to work with QNX Software Systems and TI, they can trust that both companies have spent numerous years and countless hours working together to extract the maximum performance out of the SoC platform. It is easy to see that QNX is there with TI when a new SoC first arrives, working alongside TI’s engineers to get the latest QNX software running on Jacinto within days. OEMs and tier ones can trust that engineers from both companies have collaborated with one another to deliver QNX board support packages on Jacinto with optimized drivers and integrated middleware. This collaboration saves tier one suppliers precious time when doing their own board bring-up or board support package.

Integrated SDR
An example is in order. To accelerate time to market and reduce tier one integration efforts, TI and QNX Software Systems have integrated software defined radio running on the Jacinto C66x DSP into the QNX CAR Platform. This pre-integration step minimizes the amount of effort that tier ones expend when integrating HD and DAB radio functions into their head unit designs.

TI and QNX can build a longstanding relationship with customers by demonstrating the number of products tailored for automotive that both companies have released over the years. Developing automotive products is a strand in the DNA of both companies, not this year’s latest venture.

With trust comes the expectation of dependability, and I expect nothing less when making my own automobile purchasing decisions. I want to know that I can depend on the dealer and the manufacturer when I encounter any issue with my vehicle. I see and hear that same belief when speaking with our customers as they go through their vendor selection process. Customers want to know can they depend on TI and QNX Software Systems to help them solve critical problems during their design cycle. They want to hear how the two companies triage issues together.

Reducing boot time
Recently, TI and QNX Software Systems were tasked by a mutual customer using a DRA62x “Jacinto 5 Eco” platform to reduce the HMI boot time and to display the vehicle splash screen within a very short time frame. Our teams attacked this requirement head on and held various architecture reviews, ultimately restructuring the Jacinto 5 Eco / QNX boot process to have critical elements running in parallel, while taking advantage of the Cortex M3 cores and the QNX microkernel architecture. After careful optimization we achieved a boot time and a splash screen appearance in line with the customer requirements. The customer was extremely pleased with our collaborative efforts.

Timely resolution
TI and QNX Software Systems have an established process for joint debug sessions with customers to aid in timely resolution of issues. Our customer support engineers pull from their vast experience in solving automotive issues, along with the knowledge gained from joint architecture and design reviews. By seeing that TI and QNX know how to solve automotive issues and have shown the propensity to work together over the years, customers quickly realize that they can depend on us.

QNX technology concept car: an
example of what's possible when
you integrate QNX and TI
technology.

Finally there is value placed on the commitment to excellence. When someone has a commitment to excellence it is not only visible in their past and present but you can see it in their future as well. Most recently, QNX Software Systems and TI collaborated for a glimpse into the not-so-distant future when QNX unveiled the QNX technology concept car powered by OMAP™ processors and DLP™ technologies.

It doesn’t take OEMs and tier ones long to realize that the attributes vehicle owners demand of them are present in the collaboration between QNX Software Systems and TI. To view more blogs from my team and I, please be sure to check out Behind The Wheel.

I can’t wait to get back on the road again to tell our joint customers our story.

---

More about Robert
In his current role as product management director for OMAP™ applications processors at TI, Robert is responsible for identifying target markets, defining product roadmaps, and implementing strategic marketing efforts for TI’s industry-proven OMAP applications processors. He also develops promotion and branding activities, and drives business models for OMAP products.

Prior to this role, Robert was the worldwide director for OMAP business development. Through his hard work, the OMAP product line had one of the highest revenue-generating standard products in TI’s portfolio.

Previously, Robert served as an account product marketing and business development engineer for TI’s wireless products. In this role, he managed relationships with key TI customers, worked with the sales team to identify potential business opportunities for TI’s wireless products, negotiated pricing and contracts with customers, and drove execution of product schedules and ramp-to-production activities from a business perspective on custom engagements. He also coordinated communication strategies to the customers and aided in worldwide strategic alignment across multiple TI teams.

In 2008 Robert was honored nationally as the 2008 Black Engineer of the Year for Technical Sales and Marketing by U.S. Black Engineer magazine. He graduated from Purdue University with a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering.

Scale

Guest post by Matt Watson, TI product line manager, on the new Jacinto 6 Eco processor

Matt Watson

Whenever I hear someone mention the word “scale,” several images come to mind. The first one is the thing I avoid stepping on for fear of its shocking readout. The second is what happens to my tender, east Texas skin whenever I venture to high altitudes — which is anything higher than a Houston overpass.

Since my colleagues at QNX were nice enough to let me post on their blog, I should avoid pursuing those activities further for fear of never being invited back. [Matt, you are *always* welcome here — Ed.] Instead, I’ll focus on how TI and QNX, together, are bringing incredible performance scalability to our customers in the automotive infotainment space through the new DRA72x “Jacinto 6 Eco” processor. This processor builds on the successful foundation of the “Jacinto 6” family and offers significant value to a very wide range of in-vehicle systems. This value takes three forms:

• software reusability and hardware pin-compatibility with “Jacinto 6,” resulting in faster time to market
   
• the ability to leverage the same integration capabilities as “Jacinto 6” for a lower BOM
   
• scalability to bring elements and features of high-end infotainment down to the entry-to-mid segment in a cost-effective manner
   

QNX and TI have been collaborating for over 12 years, specifically on the “Jacinto 6” platform for more than 2 years, to help bring industry-leading performance, integration, and scalability to the automotive market. Due to its similarity with “Jacinto 6”, “Jacinto 6 Eco” allows customers to leverage a mature base of TI silicon and QNX software solutions to hit the ground driving.


Jacinto 6 Eco running the QNX CAR Platform for Infotainment and Crank Storyboard Suite

We’ll see you on the road! To view more blogs from the TI team, please be sure to check out Behind The Wheel.

---

Editor's note — Here's a little more about Matt:

Matt Watson is the product manager for the TI audio and automotive infotainment processors at Texas Instruments. At TI, Matt has also held roles managing software development for audio, multimedia, and infotainment groups over the last 12 years. Prior to joining TI, Matt held positions at Dolby Laboratories (focusing on low-bit rate audio coding) and Motorola Semiconductor (developing software for floating-point audio digital signal processors).

QNX concept car makes detour at TI headquarters

Guest post by Kroy Zeviar, QNX strategic alliances

My colleague Mark Rigley must feel (justifiably) proud these days. He is, after all, head of the team that created the new QNX concept car, which took home a Best of Show award from 2012 CES.

You'd think that Mark and I would be anxious to get home after a hectic, albeit gratifying week at CES. And indeed, we were. But we made a slight detour and stopped over in Dallas to show off the car to our friends at Texas Instruments.

Everyone loved it. The car, based on a Porsche 911, takes advantage of TI's OMAP4 and wireless connectivity solutions, so folks were naturally excited to see what their technology had helped enable.

Better yet, TI brought in a pro photographer to take these cool pix...



Upwards of 400 folks came out to see the car


Checking out the new head unit and digital cluster


Mark, in the passenger seat, giving one of many demos


Best of CES 2012 winner. Woo-hoo!


This shot is just cool.


And speaking of cool, a huge shoutout to the TI OMAP and
wireless solutions teams for all their great support!
 

Okay, time to get technical

Have glossy photos of the QNX concept car left you hungry for more? Dig into a technical whitepaper with our friends from Texas Instruments.

By now, many of you have seen photos and videos of the new QNX technology concept car, a specially modded Bentley Continental GT. Now, I'd like to say that the car was completed in record time by a small team of highly creative QNX engineers. And in many ways, that's absolutely true. But it's just as true that the work started more than 10 years ago, when QNX Software Systems started to build deep partnerships with leading players in the auto industry.

Because the truth is, you don't create this kind of magic overnight. And you don't do it on your lonesome. QNX has become successful in automotive for many reasons, but one of the most important is our ability to work closely, and productively, with A-list partners like Texas Instruments.

Inside the concept car

Take a look at the amazing displays in the Bentley, and the speed at which the screens redraw, and you get a taste just for how well QNX software and TI silicon work together under the covers.

Which brings me to a new white paper co-authored by Andy Gryc of QNX, and Matt Watson and Scott Linke of TI. It's titled "In-Vehicle Connectivity is So Retro," and among other things, it tells the story of how technologies from QNX and TI have co-evolved to help automotive developers build high-performance systems in less time and at less cost.

If your working vocabulary includes terms like OMAP 5, 1080p video decode/encode, floating-point DSP, MOST MLB, Ethernet AVB, PCIe, SATA, WiLink, Bluetooth, GPS, and NFC, this paper is for you.

The Chassis

Welcome to a new series of guest posts from Matt Watson, product line manager of
Texas Instruments' automotive infotainment group. In this installment, Matt discusses
how a key aspect of infotainment systems can get (unjustifiably) overlooked.

Matt Watson

I had an interesting revelation recently. Last fall I was at Japan’s Narita airport, waiting to board a flight, when someone jostled my backpack free of my shoulder. The backpack crashed to the floor and the impact crippled the screen on my 5-year old trustworthy portable music player (ok, iPod). The iPod would still play music, but I couldn’t “drive” it.

I wasn’t particularly interested in navigating this product blind, so I had already mentally picked out a replacement during my flight back to Texas. When I landed, I got into my car to drive home and, out of habit, plugged the iPod into my car’s USB port and listened to my normal playlist. It didn’t dawn on me immediately, but I soon realized that I was navigating the iPod from the car’s radio UI. So my iPod wasn’t useless, after all, and still provided me with its primary function — audio playback in my car.

Here was my (three-part) revelation:

1. My wife was right: I bought my car only as an iPod accessory
2. I wasn’t going to get spouse approval for the iPod upgrade I had already ear-marked
3. Sometimes we tend to forget the primary function (I had an alternative way to access the control of the iPod even without the display!)

At this point, I’d like to draw an analogy between the automotive infotainment system and the car itself. Let’s consider the infotainment system as a combination of a strong chassis (engine, powertrain, suspension, braking system, etc.) and a body (outside body, seats, user-interacting components):

• Chassis = radio, multimedia and vehicle connectivity functions
• Body = user interface, including cutting-edge features that resemble consumer/mobile experiences

In the world of automotive infotainment, the focus of attention is often on the ”body”: the functionalities mirroring the latest in consumer trends. Meanwhile, the workhorse “chassis” is overlooked. No doubt, these consumer-tracking capabilities are important, as they drive innovation, ease of use, and connectivity with existing devices. But I want to focus here on the “chassis” of the infotainment system, which handles radio, audio, voice/speech, and vehicle connectivity, and which exists in every vehicle, be it luxury or entry.

In future posts, I’ll look at some of the areas of innovation that we are driving at Texas Instruments in the area of smart integration from a processing perspective for the infotainment “chassis”. I’ll describe these from a few different perspectives: CPU/peripheral integration, system, and software integration. I’ll also explain how QNX technologies can be leveraged to further the cause of easy integration in the vehicle, including the newer QNX technologies such as the Persistent Publish/ Subscribe (PPS) service, as mentioned by Sheridan Ethier in his recent interview on HTML5.

For now, I’ll leave you with a picture of my (still functioning) iPod — note the blank screen and imagine audio playing back just fine…

---

Editor's note — Here's a little more about Matt:

Matt Watson is the Product Manager for the TI Audio and Automotive Infotainment Processors at Texas Instruments. At TI, Matt has also held roles managing software development for audio, multimedia, and infotainment groups over the last 10 years. Prior to joining Texas Instruments, Matt held positions at Dolby Laboratories (focusing on low-bit rate audio coding) and Motorola (developing software for floating-point audio Digital Signal Processors).
 

CES press: This just in!

OK well, maybe not 'just in' but these articles and releases were posted yesterday and are quite exciting if you are following QNX technology:

TeleCommunication Systems Supplies Advanced Navigation for QNX CAR 2 Application Platform

TI Takes The Driver’s Seat With An Unrivaled, Full System Solution For Connected Automotive Infotainment

AT&T's Watson coming to cars: won't mind if you ask it if you're there yet

Now on YouTube! First video of QNX technology concept car

Yesterday, some friends from Texas Instruments dropped by our CES booth for a demo of the new QNX concept car. The cameras were rolling, and here's what they caught.

Mark Rigley, head of the QNX concept team, did a fantastic job of guiding TI's Michael Guillory through the car's many features, including the gorgeous HD display powered by TI DLP technology and by a TI OMAP 5 processor. Check it out:



My favorite part? The exceedingly cool video conferencing. What's yours?

In good company: QNX partner solutions at 2014 CES

Guest post by Peter McCarthy of the QNX global partnerships team

Peter McCarthy

If anyone thinks that creating an infotainment system is easy, they obviously haven’t thought about it hard enough. It is, in fact, a massive undertaking that requires seamless integration of navigation engines, voice technologies, app environments, HMI tools, Internet music services, smartphone connectivity, automotive-hardened processors — the list goes on.

No single company could possibly offer all of these technologies. And even if it could, it still wouldn’t address the needs of automakers and tier one suppliers, who need the power of choice. Any company building an infotainment system needs the flexibility to combine Navigation Engine A with Processor B and Bluetooth Solution C.

Enabling customers to enjoy such choice without worrying about integration issues is something that QNX works very hard at. For evidence, look no further than our latest technology concept car, a modified Mercedes-Benz CLA45 AMG, which debuted this week at our CES booth. The car integrates an array of partner tech, including:

• voice recognition from Nuance
   
• navigation engines from Elektrobit (EB), Kotei Informatics, and HERE
   
• automotive processors from Texas Instruments
   
• MirrorLink smartphone-to-vehicle connectivity from RealVNC
   
• Android Jellybean version of iHeartRadio
   

Meanwhile, the head unit in our reference vehicle, also featured in the QNX booth, integrates several partner apps and holds the distinction of being the world’s first in-vehicle implementation of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Automotive Solutions. And if that’s not enough, our booth contains demos of a navigation engine from Aisin AW and a digital instrument cluster built with HMI tools from HI Corporation.

Mind you, the action isn’t restricted to the QNX booth. Several partners have also gotten into the act and are demonstrating QNX-based systems in their CES booths and meeting rooms. For instance:

• Elektrobit — Demonstrating a new concept electric vehicle that sports an instrument cluster and infotainment system based on the QNX Neutrino Realtime Operating System.
   
• Freescale — Demonstrating the QNX CAR Platform for Infotainment on its i.MX 6 Applications Processors for Automotive.
   
• Gracenote — Demonstrating how its technology can personalize the in-vehicle music experience, using a system based on the QNX Neutrino OS.
   
• NVIDIA — Demonstrating Audi's newest infotainment system featuring the NVIDIA Tegra processor and the QNX Neutrino OS.
   
• Qualcomm — Demonstrating the QNX CAR Platform on Snapdragon Automotive Solutions.
   
• Red Bend Software — Demonstrating virtualization technology that runs the QNX CAR Platform and a digital instrument cluster on dual displays driven by a single processor.
   
• Texas Instruments — Demonstrating the QNX CAR Platform running on its latest Jacinto processors
  

For the fully skinny on QNX partner technology at CES, I invite you to check out our press release, along with joint announcements that we have issued with Aisin AW, HERE, HI Corporation, and Qualcomm.

---

About Peter
When he isn't talking on oversized mobile phones, Peter McCarthy serves as director of global partnerships at QNX Software Systems, where he is responsible for establishing and fostering partnerships with technology and services companies in all of the company's target industries.

Now with ADAS: The revamped QNX reference vehicle

Tina Jeffrey

Since 2012, our Jeep has showcased what QNX technology can do out of the box. We decided it was time to up the ante...

I walked into the QNX garage a few weeks ago and did a double take. The QNX reference vehicle, a modified Jeep Wrangler, had undergone a major overhaul both inside and out — and just in time for 2015 CES.

Before I get into the how and why of the Jeep’s metamorphosis, here’s a glimpse of its newly refreshed exterior. Orange is the new gray!



The Jeep debuted in June 2012 at Telematics Detroit. Its purpose: to show how customers can use off-the-shelf QNX products, like the QNX CAR Platform for Infotainment and QNX OS, to build a wide range of custom infotainment systems and instrument clusters, using a single code base.

From day one, the Jeep has been a real workhorse, making appearances at numerous events to showcase the latest HMI, navigation, speech recognition, multimedia, and handsfree acoustics technologies, not to mention embedded apps for parking, internet radio streaming, weather, and smartphone connectivity. The Jeep has performed dependably time and time again, and now, in an era where automotive safety is top of mind, we’ve decided to up the ante and add leading-edge ADAS technology built on the QNX OS.

After all, what sets the QNX OS apart is its proven track record in safety-certified systems across market segments — industrial, medical, and automotive. In fact, the QNX OS for Automotive Safety is certified to the highest level of automotive functional safety: ISO 26262, ASIL D. Using a pre-certified OS component is key to the overall integrity of an automotive system and makes system certification much easier.

The ultimate (virtual) driving experience
How better to showcase ADAS in the Jeep, than by a virtual drive? At CES, a 12-foot video screen in front of the Jeep plays a pre-recorded driving scene, while the onboard ADAS system analyzes the scene to detect lane markers, speed signs, and preceding vehicles, and to warn of unintentional lane departures, excessive speed, and imminent crashes with vehicles on the road ahead. Onboard computer vision algorithms from Itseez process the image frames in real time to perform these functions simultaneously.

Here’s a scene from the virtual drive, in which the ADAS system is tracking lane markings and has detected a speed-limit sign:



If the vehicle begins to drift outside a lane, the steering wheel provides haptic feedback and the cluster displays a warning:



The ADAS system includes EB Assist eHorizon, which uses map data with curve-speed information to provide warnings and recommendations, such as reducing your speed to navigate an upcoming curve:



The Jeep also has a LiDAR system from Phantom Intelligence (formerly Aerostar) to detect obstacles on the road ahead. The cluster displays warnings from this system, as well as warnings from the vision-based collision-detection feature. For example:



POSTSCRIPT:
Here’s a short video of the virtual drive, taken at CES by Brandon Lewis of Embedded Computing Design, in which you can see curve-speed warnings and lane-departure warnings:



Fast-boot camera
Rounding out the ADAS features is a rear-view camera demo that can cold boot in 0.8 seconds on a Texas Instruments Jacinto 6 processor. As you may recall, NHTSA has mandated that, by May 2018, most new vehicles must have rear-view technology that can display a 10-by-20 foot area directly behind the vehicle; moreover, the display must appear no more than 2 seconds after the driver throws the vehicle into reverse. Backup camera and other fastboot requirements such as time-to-last-mode audio, time-to-HMI visible, and time-to-fully-responsive HMI are critically important to automakers. Be sure to check out the demo — but don’t blink or you’ll miss it!

Full-featured infotainment
The head unit includes a full-featured infotainment system based on the QNX CAR Platform for Infotainment and provides information such as weather, current song, and turn-by-turn directions to the instrument cluster, where they’re easier for the driver to see.



Infotainment features include:

Qt-based HMI — Can integrate other HMI technologies, including EB Guide and Crank Storyboard.

Natural language processing (NLP) — Uses Nuance’s Vocon Hybrid solution in concert with the QNX NLP technology for natural interaction with infotainment functions. For instance, if you ask “Will I need a jacket later today?”, the Weather Network app will launch and provide the forecast.

EB street director — Provides embedded navigation with a 3D map engine; the map is synched up with the virtual drive during the demo.

QNX CAR Platform multimedia engine — An automotive-hardened solution that can handle:

• audio management for seamless transitions between all audio sources
• media detection and browsing of connected devices
• background synching of music for instant media playback — without the need for the synch to be completed

Support for all smartphone connectivity options — DLNA, MTP, MirrorLink, Bluetooth, USB, Wi-Fi, etc.

On-board application framework — Supports Qt, HTML5, APK (for Android apps), and native OpenGL ES apps. Apps include iHeart, Parkopedia, Pandora, Slacker, and Weather Network, as well as a Settings app for phone pairing, over-the-air software updates, and Wi-Fi hotspot setup.

So if you’re in the North Hall at CES this week, be sure to take a virtual ride in the QNX reference vehicle in Booth 2231. Beneath the fresh paint job, it’s the same workhorse it has always been, but now with new ADAS tech automakers are thirsting for.