Blog from April, 2020

The expanding  industry ecosystem now includes OEMs and their Tier 1 suppliers, cloud services providers,  connected vehicle platform providers, independent software vendors and system integrators.  Some companies have changed focus from vertical, industry-based (like automotive) approaches, to delivering horizontal solutions across multiple industries (e.g. Internet of Things that move).  All these actors need access to the data, interfaces and services offered by vehicles (this includes cars, trucks, bikes, buses, etc.) and this motivates common descriptions of those.

We propose to name this industry future the "Common Vehicle Interface Initiative", but this topic is multi-faceted as explained below.

It is worth noting that for many years, the automotive industry have discussed the future of in-car software in various consortia, forums and conferences focused on the embedded systems, i.e. the in-vehicle hardware, software and networks.  The AUTOSAR consortium is one example.  Automotive OEMs and their suppliers shared ideas about the need for standard technologies and APIs.   Interface-centric development has moved toward a more flexible, agile and efficient development of embedded software.  As system complexity increases, this need has not been reduced, but connectivity brings it to a whole other level.

For designing the in-vehicle systems, OEMs need a software marketplace with components that are interoperable on the functional level.  This need has traditionally driven investment into projects like GENIVI and AUTOSAR to support an ability to put together complex systems from diversely sourced, but compatible parts.   System development now includes an increasing amount of OEM-owned software that also needs to fit with what the marketplace offers.

In parallel, the automotive market is changing rapidly to a mobility market where the vehicle is an element of a wider cloud-based system providing mobility services.  As a consequence, the EE architecture of vehicles will evolve from a vehicle-centric computing platform to also include vehicle-cloud computing.

The future Vehicle Cloud Architecture will vastly increase the connected car functions and data exchange.  In addition to achieving compatible interfaces between components inside the vehicle, any functions that also need to be remotely accessible or in other ways cloud-connected bring a new opportunity and a new need for standards.  These new demands make standard interfaces an absolute necessity. The fundamentals of connecting components are defined in platforms like AUTOSAR, but the missing interface agreements on the functional level means that a software marketplace with minimized integration effort is not yet fully realized.  There is a gap in achieving seamless interoperability between software components sourced from different vendors, and perhaps an even larger gap to achieve a powerful service oriented architecture (SOA) vision.  Both require common services to be named with functions and parameters fully defined.

The GENIVI Cloud & Connected Services project is actively investigating essential standards and solutions to enable a vehicle data driven software architecture as an important step towards realizing the in-vehicle and back-end systems, and ultimately create an end-to-end vehicle-to-cloud computing platform.  It is in our opinion time to start talking about the next level of common service catalogs for the connected future. 

After having a first round of discussion with some parties on the topic of generic interfaces from the outside cloud architecture to the vehicle, we believe it is now time to get together and exchange ideas and needs, and then work jointly on the definition of all the connected services and technologies that make up this Common Vehicle Interface. For questions about how to join this effort, please contact GENIVI PMO Lead or GENIVI Development Lead or register to the upcoming GENIVI Virtual Technical Summit.  → Project Home Page here!

GENIVI is pleased to invite you to our first Virtual Technical Summit on 12-14 May 2020.  The free program (open to members and non-members) has been posted and registration is open so you can begin updating your calendar with plans to attend.  Day one of the Virtual Summit (12 May) will feature a welcome keynote by the GENIVI President followed by brief overviews of active GENIVI technical projects and teams.  The day will close with industry experts presenting "forward looking" topics like cockpit domain consolidation and common vehicle interface.   

Days 2 and 3 will be given primarily to technical workshops for two active projects including the Android Automotive Special Interest Group (AA SIG) and Cloud and Connected Services.  Day 2 schedule will also include a presentation on an industry approach toward shared testing and a presentation on practical implications of the new security standard (ISO-21434).  Note that all presentations (i.e., all of day 1) will be recorded for replay.  Due to the length of and interactive nature of the workshops, these will not be recorded.

To make best use of virtual event tooling, we request that you register in advance for the Summit so that you have all of the information for all sessions available on the days of the event.  Registered participants will be emailed the session links and access codes one week prior to the event.  For security reasons, these will not be posted online until after the sessions take place.

During various breaks between sessions, GENIVI will show prerecorded videos from our event sponsors.  If your organization has a video to show and would like to be considered for sponsorship, please contact Mike Nunnery.  

The opening keynote will begin at 1500 CET on 12 May and again, all presentations will be recorded on that day for playback for those who are in time zones that are not convenient for live participation.  Other sessions on subsequent days, like the AA SIG's Audio HAL workshop, will be more conveniently scheduled to an Asia- and Europe-friendly time (i.e., morning CET). 

To view the schedule and register, visit: https://www.eventleaf.com/geniviVTS.

I wanted to make you aware of an upcoming webinar on 4 May (1600 CET / 1000 US EDT), hosted by Automotive World, during which GENIVI will share progress made in the Cloud and Connected Services project.

The webinar is titled, "How to realize an end-to-end vehicle-to-cloud communication framework" and will be presented by Kevin Valdek, CTO, High-Mobility (www.high-mobility.com) and Gunnar Andersson, GENIVI Development Lead.  You can preregister for the free webinar at Automotive World's website.  This is a great opportunity to invite your colleagues, managers and partners to get a flavor of the great work GENIVI is doing to develop a more standard approach toward vehicle data movement between the connected vehicle and the cloud.

The abstract for the webinar is as follows:

In just a few years, connected cars will become the predominant form of automotive transportation, and connected vehicle data shows great promise as a foundation for mobility services that bring value to drivers, communities, service providers and automotive manufacturers.

GENIVI is actively investigating essential standards and solutions to enable a data-driven, connected vehicle software architecture as an important step towards achieving the seamless coupling of the in-vehicle and back-end architectures, and delivering an end-to-end vehicle computing platform. 

In this free, hour-long Automotive World webinar, Kevin Valdek, CTO, High-Mobility (www.high-mobility.com) and Gunnar Andersson, GENIVI Development Lead, will present a proposed end-to-end vehicle-to-cloud communication framework, which, according to some OEM sources is what the automotive industry needs. They will discuss the rationale behind the design choices and outline a plan to implement a proof-of-concept demonstrator in order to validate the reference architecture. 

Webinar attendees will learn about:

• approaches to achieving industry-shared data models;
• details of an end-to-end vehicle-to-cloud communication framework and the technology components incorporated in the framework; and
• connections to in-car technologies such as AUTOSAR-defined SOME/IP and several others. 

Please preregister today and plan to attend.  And make it a personal goal to invite at least 5 others you know.

Many of us are being forced to "go virtual" in our work and even in our interactions with friends and family.  With my adult children spread across four different US states, I've instituted a weekly virtual family gathering to stay in touch and to provide a way of openly sharing our lives while we endure various levels of "quarantine".  While going virtual may be significantly affecting your work lives, the work of GENIVI continues by leveraging online and virtual tooling for our active collaboration.  With that said, we will miss convening face-to-face during the (now rescheduled) All Member Meeting, originally planned for 12-14 May in Leipzig.  We will have to wait a few months (until 26-28 October) for that happy gathering to occur.

In the meantime, GENIVI is proceeding with a Virtual Technical Summit on the original dates of the AMM.  Day one of the Virtual Summit (12 May) will feature a welcome keynote by the GENIVI President followed by brief overviews of active GENIVI technical projects and teams.  The day will close with industry experts presenting "forward looking" topics like cockpit domain consolidation, edge computing in the vehicle and common vehicle interface.   Days 2 and 3 will be given primarily to technical workshops for two active projects including the Android Automotive Special Interest Group (AA SIG) and Cloud and Connected Services.  Day 2 schedule will also include a presentation on shared testing and a presentation on a new security standard (ISO-21434).  Note that all presentations (i.e., all of day 1 and the two presentations on day 2) will be recorded for replay.  Due to the length of and interactive nature of the workshops, these will not be recorded.

During the week of 6 April, GENIVI will post a near-final schedule with session speakers and abstracts for your review and planning.  To make best use of virtual event tooling, we request that you register in advance for the Summit so that you have all of the information for all sessions available on the days of the event.  Registration will also be available next week.  Because of the recent increase in "Zoom-bombing" and other disruptive online behaviors, we will enforce passwords for all sessions, making preregistration all the more important.

For now, please mark your calendars for this important connection point for the GENIVI membership and beyond.  The opening keynote will begin at 1500 CET on 12 May and again, all presentations will be recorded on that day for playback for those who are in time zones that are not convenient for live participation.  Other sessions on subsequent days, like the AA SIG's Audio HAL workshop, will be more conveniently scheduled to an Asia- and Europe-friendly time (i.e., morning CET).  Stay tuned for a full schedule next week and please be safe and well!