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TU-Automotive Detroit has joined forces with TUAutomotive Awards, ADAS & Autonomous Vehicles, WardsAuto Interiors Conference and WardsAuto UX Conference for one year only in a Festival of Automotive.  The online event is scheduled for 18-20 August and intends to replace the previously face-to-face events with virtual connections to accelerate business, showcase expertise and education automotive stakeholders.

Historically, GENIVI has held its (very popular) GENIVI Showcase and Reception during the TU-Automotive show normally held during the TU-Automotive Detroit show in June.  With the current pandemic, many shows like these are combining and going virtual.  GENIVI is a strong believer in industry collaboration over a variety of topics and this "festival" has great promise for such collaborative efforts.  Topics for the festival include:

• Driving the Future of Automotive- Trends and Outlook that are Building a New Automotive Roadmap
• How Is Data Commercializing The Automotive Market?
• The Global Roadmap to Electrification
• Changing Lanes: Monetizing on the Future of the Software Defined Vehicle.

The event has a strong speaker line up from organizations like Arcimoto, General Motors, Hyundai Motor, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Toyota, Volkswagen Group of America, Volvo Cars Tech Fund, YouTube, and ZF.  

Interested parties can learn more about the event and register at: https://automotive.knect365.com/tu-auto-detroit/.  GENIVI members will receive a 25% discount on the event fee by using "GENIVI25" as a discount code while registering.  Note also that start-up organizations may attend free of charge, which is a savings of $395.

While we will miss "seeing you" in person as we have in past TU-Automotive shows, we hope you will enjoy this festival of virtual events.

GENIVI recently invited technical leaders from member companies (those identified in the member database) to participate in member survey to gather input about the GENIVI mission relevance, active projects, events and communication channels, and membership value.  With all that is currently going on in our world and with an understanding that the business climate and priorities of our industry have already shifted during this pandemic, GENIVI is seeking member input now more than ever.  The data collected with this survey will inform an upcoming meeting of the Board of Directors in mid-July, during which significant time will be given to strategic planning for the future of the alliance.

If you believe you have valuable input to give to GENIVI, are a representative of a member company, but did not receive an email inviting you to participate in the survey, we invite you or a colleague to participate in this data gathering activity.  The brief survey takes you through a series of questions and you can provide your input in ten minutes or less.  Please provide your input by 30 June.

If your organization is not a member of the alliance, GENIVI is also planning to gather information from non-member organizations by means of a separate survey.  This survey will be launched in July so stay tuned.

If you have questions about GENIVI membership or would like to know more about the survey, please contact Steve Crumb.

UPDATE:  Many of you have already heard the the CES 2021 show will not happen in person.  Stay tuned as GENIVI may still be involved virtually in the program during the Connect2Car program track, in collaboration with SAE.

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GENIVI received word last week that the CES 2021 show scheduled to be held early next January in Las Vegas is proceeding as planned as an in-person event.  By the organizers own admission, the show may be smaller and according to a recent email, "many of the world's leading tech brands are confirmed to showcase the latest technologies, and we will be announcing soon the tech luminaries who will speak on our CES stages."  The organizers are also introducing new program elements around "Tech Battling Pandemics" and "Digital Health".   Las Vegas recently began reopening for business and hotels are implementing comprehensive plans for health and safety.  The organizers are working closely with the Las Vegas community and event industry associations to ensure event plans follow the recommendations of public health experts and standards set by the federal, state and local governments.

As many already know, the GENIVI Showcase and Reception event has historically been one of the highlights of the CES week for the automotive industry.  Last year, nearly 1400 people attended our event and feedback was exceptionally positive.  While much has changed since last year, we believe many in the industry want and need an in-person gathering, though with essential prioritization of the health and safety of all participating.  GENIVI will carefully weigh the health and welfare of all involved prior to committing to the event.  In addition to the showcase, the Connect2Car panel series jointly presented by GENIVI and SAE is a second highlight for the automotive industry.  CEA has not yet confirmed the final program, but this very popular panel series is sure to be a continued offering of the CES program.

GENIVI has started internal discussions about its presence and activities during this next CES event.   Initial steps include reaching out to member organizations about their interest in participating in the annual showcase event held in past years at the Bellagio hotel.  GENIVI already has some commitments to sponsor and / or take a table in the showcase and we will gather all the necessary information during the next few weeks in order to make an informed decision in July.  If your organization is interested in showcasing or sponsoring the GENIVI event, please contact Mike Nunnery directly.  And stay tuned in late July for more information about the GENIVI activities during the CES 2021 week.

Many of us have experienced the joy (or should I say frustration) of moving ourselves or perhaps our parents out of a house in which an overwhelming amount of stuff has accumulated.  

Collaborative organizations, like GENIVI, that have been around a long time also accumulate a lot of "old stuff".   GENIVI members have had a rich history of delivering many valuable assets to the automotive industry.  These assets range from open source code projects (many of which are still in the github repository) to UML models of standard interfaces to briefs describing technical approaches to known problems to compliance specifications and supporting documentation for the GENIVI compliance program.  Further, artifacts of our many All Member Meetings, Technical Summits, expert group workshops and industry events have also accumulated over the 12 years GENIVI has been in operation.  

I share this for a couple of reasons.  First, not all of this "old GENIVI stuff" has lost its worth. GENIVI has made the decision to preserve these materials in our member wiki, which is different than our "public" wiki, the one you find yourself on right now.  Since GENIVI has moved to a more open model, the public wiki has become the PRIMARY source of CURRENT content and artifacts for active projects within GENIVI.  We don't want any confusion about were to find recent dialog and outputs of current GENIVI activities.  But the "old GENIVI stuff" is still available and with proper member credentials, it can be searched and mined for valuable insights.  The second reason I share this is to remind and re-energize our collaborative community to continue delivering valuable assets to the industry, as GENIVI has consistently done for 12 years.  GENIVI has continuously evolved to embrace innovation in the automotive industry resulting in active projects that are meaningful and relevant.  However, this evolution has resulted in less emphasis on past approaches, programs and outputs (many of which were valuable at the time of delivery) and the accumulation of "stuff" in our member wiki.

One of the most important programs in earlier years of the alliance was the GENIVI Compliance Program (reachable only my members with access credentials).  Automaker RFQs often requested GENIVI Compliant^(TM) solutions from their suppliers.  This resulted in an active compliance program in which GENIVI members could measure compliance of their IVI platforms against a GENIVI Platform Compliance Specification.  Those that were successful received the right to use the trademark in their marketing materials and in their RFQ responses.  This led to a rapid increase of adoption by automakers for Linux-based solutions because of a robust ecosystem of solution providers, which was exactly why the compliance program was initially established.  As we survey that same ecosystem today, it is strong and the need for continuing the compliance program has waned as many commercial vendors today offer very mature IVI solutions.  As a result, the GENIVI Board has recently agreed to discontinue the compliance program, as it was defined previously, and to focus the alliance attention on other innovations like multi-OS integration and car to cloud connectivity.

The compliance program is one of many important "old GENIVI" outputs documented in the GENIVI member wiki.  Even though the program is paused, members may still find value today in some of its artifacts and in leveraging GENIVI open source code.  For representatives of member companies, GENIVI welcomes continued usage of the GENIVI member wiki, even though many parts of it are obsolete and not kept up to date.  If your credentials have expired or you have forgotten them, you can contact the GENIVI helpdesk to get them renewed.  And for all of us, let's keep accumulating good artifacts in our current projects as the industry needs collaborative and standard approaches to the challenges faced in today's connected car.  Even if it may eventually become "old stuff", let us keep pace with the speed of technology innovation and not let the future limit our productivity today.      

One of many challenges facing a 11-year old organization like GENIVI is answering the question, "What does GENIVI stand for now?"  Glad you asked!  GENIVI has quietly been improving ways to help others understand our current mission and has significantly simplified its web content - an important source of information on GENIVI's recent activities and outputs.

GENIVI set a goal early this year to produce assets that could be easily forwarded within our member organizations to inform managers and other technologists that should be aware of the alliance work.  GENIVI has now produced a two-minute video that clearly communicates the current focus and technical scope of several active GENIVI projects.  I urge you to take two minutes to watch the video, capture the URL and pass it on to others inside your organization for awareness.  And, as appropriate, feel free to pass it on to your partners and clients.  GENIVI is actively recruiting new members and contributors to our work, so we welcome newcomers to check us out.

While the video was being delivered, GENIVI also did a refresh of it website and wiki.  Over the course of the last 11 years, GENIVI has met many goals and effectively completed the mission upon which it was originally launched (Linux-based, open source IVI platform).  And over the years, messaging about adoption, compliance and many other alliance outputs had overly complicated navigation on both the website and the wiki.  With the new look and simplified navigation, we hope and expect you will find the content you are looking for quicker and with far less"noisy content" to wade through on your way.  The GENIVI communications team welcomes input on both sites as we are always looking for ways to improve both web properties.  Feel free to email Steve Crumb with your thoughts and suggestions. 

For those of you who have been around a long time, you know that GENIVI also has a members-only wiki, in which we kept artifacts prior to our moving to a more open approach toward collaboration.  That members-only wiki still exists and has become sort of an repository for loads of older content.  So, we have it on our list to simplify its content as an upcoming project.  If you haven't visited that wiki lately (or have forgotten your credentials), no worries, as nearly all of our current work is done on the public wiki mentioned earlier in this blog.  Stay tuned for an another blog updating you on some of that member-only content, including the compliance specification and related compliance program.  And don't forget to check out the video and let us know what you think!

Instead of gathering in Leipzig, Germany for the 20th GENIVI All Member Meeting, over 400 registered to attend the first GENIVI Virtual Technical Summit during 12-14 May.  Early indications from the event survey suggest the event was very popular and GENIVI is pleased with the attendance and the lessons learned from executing a completely virtual event.  While we look forward to being together again soon (hopefully on 27-29 October when the All Member Meeting is rescheduled), but if not, expect to see more and more virtual content and gatherings from GENIVI in upcoming months.

All of the Summit's content has now been posted on the event's wiki page and we welcome you to review the recorded sessions for day 1 as well as download slides and view minutes of sessions held on days 2 and 3.  The complete agenda shows pictures and biographies of all speakers; however, session content will not be found there but instead on the event wiki page.  

GENIVI was pleased with the feedback and interactions that occurred during many of the sessions, but we also welcome additional questions, comments and especially willingness to contribute.  We welcome you to contact GENIVI PMO Lead Philippe Robin and Development Lead Gunnar Andersson if you would like to know more about or volunteer to participate in any of the projects and activities discussed during the Summit.  Those interested in joining GENIVI can contact Steve Crumb.

Finally, I want to thank each and every speaker, the program committee and our event sponsors, Mentor Automotive, OpenSynergy, ESG, Itemis and Tuxera for the virtual showcase videos shown on all three days.

GENIVI completed day one of the Virtual Technical Summit on 12 May and below are a few highlights of the program.  The full agenda including links to all the slides has been updated and once we have links to all recorded sessions, you can view all parts of the day one program at your leisure.

Michael Ziganek, President of GENIVI, kicked off the day with a keynote presentation that emphasized three main points:

• WHO GENIVI has become (emphasizing the expansion of our scope into multi-OS integration and cloud connectivity)
• WHAT has happened recently (emphasizing the many outputs and events produced by GENIVI during the last year)
• HOW GENIVI wants you to be involved (emphasizing roles you and your organization can play in GENIVI projects and activities).

Michael closed his talk with some thoughts about the future of GENIVI including the growing complexity of integration and development introduced by domain fusion and the need for standards more then ever to solve current and upcoming challenges.  He noted that the success of meeting these challenges depends on the contribution of the community and constant interaction with the industry leaders and other consortia.  And he encouraged everyone to work together in the spirit of GENIVI to provide valuable solutions to these growing challenges.

Next, attendees heard from leaders of active GENIVI projects including the Android Automotive SIG, the Cloud and Connected Services project, the Hypervisor Project, the Security Team and a new "Birds of a Feather" on the subject of in-vehicle payments.  The presentations emphasized the very active and multifaceted technical community collaborating in GENIVI.  GENIVI welcomes questions and inquiries about how to participate in any or all of these projects by contacting Philippe Robin.

The final two sessions presented trends in the industry that GENIVI is following closely.  A panel of industry experts from Bosch, Renault Software Labs, McKinsey & Company and GENIVI tackled the topic of a Common Vehicle Interface Initiative.  And then Michael Ziganek (Mentor Automotive), discussed the impact of cockpit domain fusion.  

We are grateful to our event sponsors that have provided brief videos to be played throughout the three day event.  You can find these videos at the bottom of the wiki schedule page.  A special thanks to all who joined day one and we invite you back for days two and three during which we will dive a bit deeper into the activities of the Android Automotive SIG, the Security Team and the Cloud and Connected Services Project.  Stay tuned to this blog for additional highlights.

We are likely experiencing a new definition of "disconnected" as we have weathered a lengthy period of working remotely and (hopefully) staying safe at home.  I hope you are successfully navigating this virtual way of working and when you can, I invite you to consider a couple of ways to stay connected to the activities and work of GENIVI.

Had circumstances been different, we would be gathering at the Leipzig Marriott hotel next week for some great networking at the GENIVI All Member Meeting 2020.  We will have to wait (and hope) for a renewed opportunity to meet face-to-face during our new target date for the event (27-29 October 2020) also in Leipzig.  But we still have the opportunity of engaging together in the GENIVI Virtual Technical Summit starting 12 May at 1500 CEST.  The agenda is posted and registration, though free, is required so please visit the registration page today to ensure you receive the links to all the sessions.  The event will begin with an opening Keynote by GENIVI President, Michael Ziganek, then attendees will hear updates from several active GENIVI project leaders.  Day one will conclude with two "forward looking" sessions on common vehicle interface definition and domain consolidation.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the program consists of a combination of presentations (connected vehicle software development and automotive cybersecurity) and working sessions (workshops) on active topics in the Android(tm) Automotive SIG and the Cloud and Connected Services project.  To obtain links to any or all of these sessions, please register to obtain the information necessary to join the sessions.  And stay tuned during the session breaks as several GENIVI members have submitted informative videos about their products and services. 

Please consider inviting a colleague or partner to this informative and free event scattered across portions of three days.  GENIVI understands that you may not be able to attend a session due to other priorities, so links to recorded sessions and slides will be posted here: Technical Summit (Virtual) May 2020.

A second way to stay connected to GENIVI is to review sessions already delivered, like the recent Automotive World webinar given by the GENIVI Cloud and Connected Services project entitled, "How to realize an end-to-end vehicle-to-cloud communication framework".  The slides and a video of this webinar is available here: https://www.automotiveworld.com/webinars/realizing-an-end-to-end-vehicle-to-cloud-communication-framework/.  Join the nearly 300 participants who viewed this webinar when it was delivered on 4 May.  And if you are interested in getting involved in the CCS project, please contact Philippe Robin.

GENIVI realizes that even though you may have a different work environment, the work itself still takes most of your attention.  Because of these unusual circumstances we live in, margins to watch even a brief virtual summit session or webinar may be limited.  But we encourage your participation and connection to the ongoing work of GENIVI.  The alliance continues to advance and we look forward to doing so virtually until the day we can meet again face-to-face.  Be well and see you "online" soon!

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!

GENIVI is actively investigating essential standards and solutions needed to enable a fully data-oriented, connected vehicle architecture.  In just a few years, connected cars will become the predominant form of automotive transportation. A number of actors are working at breaking down the barriers to adoption for mobility services based on automotive data and helping drivers, communities, mobility services, aftermarket and repair services and automotive manufacturers extract the most value from that data. But this has already resulted in a somewhat fragmented ecosystem where different actors are using different solutions to access the data of connected cars.

As an example of the fragmentation, we have identified competing commercial initiatives that are developing mostly proprietary solutions, and more than one partly overlapping collaborative efforts. Several start-ups are already active for delivering data of production vehicles to the market place in the short term. 

As more of the solutions also involve public infrastructure, including the smart cities concept, the time for finding a common approach is imminent. We have gathered a list of collaborative projects that look at various facets of the same topic on a mid to long term.

A priority topic emerging from this analysis is the need to agree on an industry-wide common data model.  GENIVI has already delivered an overview and gap analysis for the different data models used by these collaborative projects. This first deliverable is available here.

In addition to the above usage, more and more automotive functions exchange data with the cloud-based back-end or execute partly using cloud computing. This back-end provides the basis for various innovative applications and functions that can execute with support of the cloud. These functions include autonomous driving, enhanced speech recognition and security-related system behavior analysis, and many more.

GENIVI believes there is a need to join forces and harmonize activities to realize the full data-oriented connected vehicle architecture.

The current alliance work on data-driven connected vehicle software architecture is 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. This end-to-end platform leverages existing standards and solutions, but some gaps exist and an overall interoperability is still far from achieved. We are convinced the GENIVI work will help the automotive industry take a big step toward the future when the in-vehicle software, E/E architecture and the back-end architecture will be moving closer together.

The Cloud & Connected Services (CCS) project team has made a major step forward during Q1, 2020 with the initial design of an end-to-end vehicle-to-cloud communication framework. This framework incorporates technology components identified by various collaborative projects such as W3C Gen 2 protocol built on VSS2, GraphQL, ISO Extended Vehicle Neutral Server. It clarifies connections to in-car technologies such as AUTOSAR-defined SOME/IP and several others.

The team plans to implement a proof-of-concept demonstrator in order to validate the reference architecture of the communication framework. There is work breakdown structure for this work available here.  We are now in the process of recruiting volunteers to help with the development activities.

The CCS proof-of-concept project roadmap is organized around 4 demonstrable milestones:

• milestone #1 - GENIVI Virtual Summit (12-13 May)
• milestone #2 – Internal project milestone (Q3 - July)
• milestone #3 - Fall All Member Meeting (27-29 October)
• milestone #4 - CES 2021 (January 2021).

All contributors are welcome! Now is the right time to join the team and share your expertise in some implementation and test activities. For questions about how to join the team, please contact GENIVI PMO Lead or GENIVI Development Lead.

The GENIVI Alliance Board met on 17 March to discuss the current coronavirus situation and how it affects the planned GENIVI All Member Meeting scheduled for 12-14 May in Leipzig, Germany.   Following recommended guidelines from global and national health organizations, the Board made two decisions.

First, the Board decided to postpone the physical (face-to-face) event to the fall with a new target date of 27-29 October, which will be confirmed with the Marriott Leipzig.  Once the dates have been confirmed, we will communicate the new plan by email and on the website.  The scope and purposes of the all member meeting, including its member showcase and the open community element that encourages participation by non-members, will continue as was originally planned for the May event.  

An important second decision reached by the Board was to proceed with a slightly reduced scope Summit in May using virtual technologies to allow for program sessions to proceed as planned, though not in person.  The details for this virtual approach are being finalized by GENIVI staff, but at a minimum, the program will support interactive participation and have the following elements:

• President's Keynote and Board "Town Hall" meeting
• Presentations on 1-2 trends affecting current and future E/E Architecture (topics to be announced)
• Status updates on GENIVI collaborative projects (including those with planned sessions later in the event)
• Android Automotive SIG Workshop (multiple sessions)
• Cloud and Connected Services Project Workshop (multiple sessions)
• Hypervisor Usage and the Automotive Virtualization Platform Specification Workshop (multiple sessions).

The Board also made a request to explore holding a one-hour, virtual showcase during which sponsoring organizations would have a brief slot to introduce their products and services to a virtual audience and have the ability to set up offline conversations with interested attendees.  Virtual beer and snacks will be served.   More information on how this will be executed will be made in another blog post and through Mike Nunnery, GENIVI Marketing Manager.

While many of us would have enjoyed being face-to-face, we will have to wait until the fall to do so.  But in the meantime, keep your calendars marked for 12-14 May for the first ever, GENIVI Virtual Summit.  If you have any questions about this event, please contact me (scrumb at genivi dot org).

Stay healthy and safe and I wish you all the best during these challenging times.

Automotive OEMs are increasingly adopting Android^(tm) Automotive embedded as a solution for their IVI stack. This adoption has introduced a series of challenges around integrating the Android Automotive embedded solution into existing legacy software and into other systems present in the vehicle.

Through a GENIVI-hosted Android Automotive Special Interest Group (AASIG), OEMs, their suppliers and the broader cockpit software ecosystem can discuss requirements, identify gaps and provide an aligned, community voice for discussion with the Google Android Automotive team. There are currently two active projects under the GENIVI AASIG umbrella: the Vehicle Hardware Abstraction Layer (VHAL) / Vehicle Data APIs project and the Audio Hardware Abstraction Layer (Audio HAL) project.  Android-related discussions are also occurring in other GENIVI projects.

The AASIG VHAL / Vehicle Data APIs project has recently detailed a delivery roadmap for its initial deliverables.  During a successful face-to-face meeting hosted at the beginning of February by BMW in Munich, the project team identified four proof-of-concept (coding projects) corresponding the various software architectural options that have been debated since last November’s GENIVI Technical Summit, held in Troy, Michigan.  

The four proof-of-concepts include:

1. External Data Server (EDS) proof-of-concept: One rationale for extending Android access to vehicle data is that the number of vehicle properties currently defined in standard Android is very limited as compared to the thousands of vehicle-related signals OEMs are considering for their connected vehicles. Although the project could propose to expand the standard vehicle property list in Android, the integration of Android into a complex electrical and connected vehicle architecture suggests a bigger picture to consider.  Standard data access methods should be applied in the entire vehicle and in cloud connected services.  This EDS proof-of-concept intends to validate the concept of a data server accessing the vehicle dataset as described by VSS (Vehicle Signal Specification standard), which is used also in W3C Automotive Group, and enabling authenticated Android apps to access the vehicle data through a web socket protocol. The actual values of the vehicle signals will be queried / updated thanks to a VSS feeder that will connect to the rest of the vehicle using, for example, Some/IP.
2. Internal Data Server proof-of-concept is only a variant of the External Data Server above, where the data server is inside the Android Automotive framework.
3. SomeIP stack inside the Framework proof-of-concept relates to a Some/IP stack running in the Android Automotive framework. It is worth noting that in the GENIVI github repository there is on-going contribution for porting the vsomeip component to Android Automotive.
4. Google VHAL + OEM Extensions inside proof-of-concept explores the coexistence at the VHAL level of a Google-certified/compliant implementation of the vehicle properties as well as the access to the extended data as defined by the rest of the vehicle architecture and as needed by OEMs as explained above.

The AASIG VHAL project team has decided to implement first the External Data Server proof-of-concept because it relies on a very limited coupling of the Android Automotive side and the Vehicle side and can be implemented with available technologies like GraphQL, Node.JS and VSS data server.

The team has developed a complete work breakdown structure for the EDS proof-of-concept which is available here. We are now in the process of recruiting volunteers to help with the development activities.

The EDS proof-of-concept project roadmap is organized around four milestones, each representing a demonstrator deliverable:

• milestone #1 - Spring AMM (12-14 May)
• milestone #2 – Present findings to Android Automotive experts for validation (early Q3)
• milestone #3 - Fall tech summit (Q4 – November)
• milestone #4 - CES 2021 (January 2021).

All contributors are welcome! Now is the right time to join the team and share your expertise in the project's implementation and test activities. For questions about how to join the team, please contact GENIVI PMO Lead or GENIVI Development Lead.