In recent months Bosch has come out with a statement pinpointing the rapidly advancing software-defined automobile. They are claiming the car of the future is here and it is an “IoT device on wheels.”
Bosch is saying there are four megatrends to tomorrow’s car: Connectivity, personalization, powertrain electrification, and automated driving. Drivers in tomorrow’s electric vehicles will demand their cars be fully integrated with their digital lifestyles. Many of the boundaries between automotive electronics and consumer electronics will fade, and most will disappear.
The megatrends of electrified driving and automated driving lead to increases in functions that are dramatic and cutting edge. Those functions include range optimization as well as surroundings perceptions for driver assistance systems in electric vehicles. Both of these developments are limited in a traditional electric/electronic (E/E) architecture.
Bosch is working with automobile manufacturers in order to manage the increasing complexity and connectivity and to develop E/E architectures that include powerful computers on board, zone ECUs and software solutions that are all integrated and work in concert.
As far back as the 1970s Bosch has been working on and developing innovations in electronics-based solutions. Bosch developed the Anti-lock braking system, sparking a digital revolution in the automobile in 1978.
The teams are 30,000 experts strong, and all are involved in developing over 14,000 software solutions in the mobility sector alone. The car is becoming a software-defined system. The key attributes are to reliably integrate all the software components and satisfy all the strict safety standards laid out by the Automotive Safety Integrity Level D (ASIL D). And that standard is in combination with cybersecurity requirements.
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Bosch is a single-source provider of vehicle electronics, sensor technologies, and software for vehicles, that are all designed to work perfectly together. In addition to that work, on-board architecture and vehicle architecture can be further expanded in the cloud and backend solution as well as services, enabling the vehicle to participate in mobility ecosystems and IoT.
The car is becoming an IoT device, connected throughout its systems, not by many control systems, but by a more centralized extremely powerful few computer systems. The company is already seeing this development in real-time in high-performance computers (HPCs) for automated driving and driver-assist functions.
The HPCs are extremely versatile and operate across all domains. There is no longer a need for domain-specific software tied to one particular control unit but can be routed cross-domain to any of the vehicle’s computers. This leads directly to enabling connected, zero-emission, and automated driving.
For more information on the Bosch mobility and IoT initiative see the initiative page.
Bosch Mobility Solutions | bosch-mobility-solutions.com
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For the past 8 years, I have been writing about embedded technologies, added to my technical, academic, and medical editorial experience, with companies like Elsevier and Cambridge University Press. I tell people to read what I write, not try to pronounce my last name. I am always available for comments and suggestions you can reach me at product-editor@circuitcellar.com and I promise I will take the time to reach back out to you. I live in the North East with my wonderful family.
