The automotive industry is undergoing a revolution driven by telecommuting and electrification.
Such technologies as wireless connection, artificial intelligence, and millimeter wave radar promote new user experiences and change passenger expectations.
These unique advances make cars safer, more comfortable, efficient, and generally enjoyable.
As the automotive industry moves from hardware to software-defined vehicles, the role of high-quality automotive software is growing rapidly.
Therefore, it is unsurprising that automotive software development services are becoming more popular daily.
Developers add new connectivity features, advanced analytics, apps, operating systems, and AI elements.
The new era of automotive software takes place. This radically changes ideas about traditional business models, client needs, and competition.
What Is Automotive Software Development?
Any software development aims to create a new or improve an existing feature. The same applies to automotive software solutions.
They provide benefits for the driver, passengers, and workshop mechanics, simplify maintenance and ensure compliance with legal requirements.
The technical implementation may be mechanical, hydraulic, electrical, or electronic.
Practice shows that it is also beneficial to combine several technologies at once. But no matter what kind of automotive innovation is released, electronics play a significant role. It controls almost all functions in cars of all classes.
Electronics software makes it possible to implement various automotive intelligence functions at a minimal cost.
Key Requirements For Automotive Software Solutions
The requirements for automotive software are pretty extensive and varied. Here are some of the most important ones:
- Car control operations. Traffic safety and engine management systems must guarantee a quick response of vehicle control operations to prevent delays from the physical process;
- Security. The reliability requirements for automotive software are very high. Sophisticated diagnostic systems must control it;
- Adaptation. Considering that software solutions are used in different model ranges, they should be adaptable to various systems;
- Dependence of software features on the application area. The characteristics of automotive solutions are determined by their application. Thus, chassis solutions assume real-time performance, comfort systems are designed with an emphasis on efficiency, and multimedia applications tend to process large amounts of data in a short time;
- The long service life of automotive electronics. Many software features are developed and improved after the production of a particular vehicle. Therefore, electronics must have a relatively long service life, for example, 15-20 years.
All of the above requirements must necessarily be taken into account during the automotive software development process.
And then the created solution will certainly attract the attention of a wide audience.
How Will Automotive Software Solutions Change The Auto Industry In The Coming Years?
Determining how modern automotive software solutions will affect the industry in the coming years is impossible. However, there are a few important aspects to note.
Advanced Middleware
The modern auto market is moving towards more flexible and efficient architectures, including advanced middleware.
Working with ECU hardware, the middleware layer will provide virtualization, abstraction, SOA, and distributed computing. It will enable vehicle reconfiguration, software installation, and updates.
Number Of Sensors
In the next two or three generations of vehicles, automakers will likely continue to install security sensors to provide sufficient safety-related reserves.
We can also expect that the number of consumer electronics sensors built into the car’s interior will be increased.
Motion sensors and monitoring of metrics such as sleepiness and heart rate, as well as eye tracking and face recognition, are just some of the potential use cases.
However, in a long-term perspective, the automotive industry may propose special solutions to lower the number of sensors and development resources.
Smart Built-In Sensors
System architectures will require embedded sensors to process vast amounts of data enabling automated driving.
While some high-level functions (such as 3D positioning) will work well based on centralized computing platforms, the pre-processing, filtering, and fast response cycles will most likely be performed directly in the sensor.
A new class of sensor cleaning apps (de-icing, dust, and dirt removers) will be needed to keep the sensor working properly in all conditions.
Data And Power Network Redundancy
In the coming years, redundancy of data and power networks is also expected. Critical apps that require high reliability will use fully redundant circuits for everything required for safe operation (for example, power and data transmission).
The introduction of electric cars, mainframes, and energy-intensive distributed computing technologies will need efficient redundant power management networks.
Fault-tolerant systems that support wireless control and other HAD functions will require a redundant system, which is a great architectural improvement over current failover monitoring implementations.
Ethernet
Current transport networks are unable to meet the demands of future cars. Increased data transfer rates, security, and protection in connected environments, as well as the high need for cross-industry standardized protocols, will likely lead to the development of automotive Ethernet.
Its solutions will be widely used to provide reliable cross-domain communication and meet real-time needs by adding various extensions such as time-sensitive networks (TSNs) and audio-video bridges (AVBs).
Cloud Storage
Vehicles will use cloud storage to combine onboard information with onboard data.
Non-sensitive data (i.e., not security-related data) will increasingly and more efficiently be processed in the cloud for more information.
If data volumes continue to grow, data analytics will become indispensable for processing information and delivering actionable insights.
Updateable Components
Technological progress will inevitably lead to the development of automotive updateable components using two-way communication.
Embedded test systems will allow vehicles to test integration and update features automatically.
ECUs will receive data from various sensors, thus creating datasets to support advanced use cases such as route calculation based on vehicle characteristics.
Conclusion
Therefore, the auto industry has many prospects for the coming years. And all thanks to modern technologies and original automotive software solutions.
Take advantage of professional automotive software development services and enjoy the most comfortable and efficient car!