Wednesday 23 September 2015

Is Developing For Car Infotainment Systems like Android Auto and Apple Carplay the Next Big Thing?

http://www.toptal.com/
BY NERMIN HAJDARBEGOVIC - TECHNICAL EDITOR @ TOPTAL
Whenever you see a headline that poses a question, the answer to that particular question is usually a big fat no. However, when it comes to software development for next-generation car infotainment systems like Android Auto and Apple Carplay, that’s not the case. If you can spare a few minutes, I will try to explain why.
We’ve all heard talk of autonomous, driverless cars for years, and many of us had a chance to try out some rudimentary implementations of such technologies, which are slowly making their way to mainstream cars. This post won’t deal with those for the following reasons: driverless cars are still years away, they will be closed for development, and they will not create a new market for developers, not unless you want your car to be parallel parked using code written by a 16-year-old coder freelancing for $5 an hour.
However, cars with next-generation connected infotainment systems will create new opportunities on several fronts. In case you already have an infotainment system with a neat touchscreen and GPS in your car, please accept my condolences; it’s about to become as obsolete as a Nokia 3310 compared to an iPhone.
Next-gen infotainment platforms are to current systems what smartphones are to feature phones.
I know that is a bold statement, and many of you won’t agree with me, but I like to kick off on a provocative note. I will do my best to change your mind, and if I fail, feel free to let me know in the comment section.
Evolution Of Car Infotainment Systems, Or Lack Of It
So what’s so wrong with the current generation of car infotainment and navigation systems? How come many of us chose not to buy them? Why don’t we see a lot of development in this niche?
It all boils down to a combination of technical and economic considerations. Consumer tech is rendered obsolete in years, roughly two product cycles for smartphones, three to four cycles for desktops and laptops. That usually translates into two to five years. Naturally, as products mature, their lifecycle is extended as well.
The car industry does not work that way, so very few of us go out and buy a new car nearly as often. In fact, many new cars ship with three- to five-year warranties, so most people are unlikely to sell them for five or more years. Cars are built to last a decade or more, and they can’t be upgraded like desktop PCs, or receive OTA updates like our smartphones.
Android Auto
But hold on, why don’t carmakers simply install off-the-shelf technology employed in tablets and smartphones? Why do we still have expensive dials if it would be cheaper to replace them with a high-resolution panel used in $200 tablets? The answer is simple; it wouldn’t work.
Automotive electronics are a world apart from consumer tech. While they can be based on similar chip architectures and technologies, they need to be a lot more durable. Unlike your iPad, your car infotainment system has to put up with a very hostile environment and deal with loads of potential issues:
·         Constant vibrations and G forces.
·         Extremely high and low temperatures.
·         Ability to stand up to high levels of humidity, or the occasional splash of water.
·         MTBF has to be much longer.
·         When they fail, they need to fail safe.
·         Infotainment systems are integrated with numerous other components.
·         Legal and regulatory issues must be addressed.
I could expand this list, but I think it’s enough to prove my point; a car infotainment system and an iPad don’t have that much in common. They may share the same DNA, but the same goes for a MacBook Air and a Panasonic Toughbook.
The good news is that developers needn’t be concerned by any of these issues, because they will be addressed by carmakers and tech companies trying to slide their foot in the door and grab a piece of this emerging market. That leaves us with good old chips and operating systems, and whether they’re in a desktop, smartphone, smart toaster or a new car, they all speak the same language; they all execute code.
What Sort Of Technology Is Coming To Our Cars?
A number of tech heavyweights, including Apple, Google, Texas Instruments, and Nvidia, have already entered this market. You can already buy cars equipped with some of these systems, and some solutions like Nvidia’s Tegra-based infotainment platforms, have been on the market for years.
The next obvious step is to open up these platforms and get more brands, and consumers, on the bandwagon.
Google Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are bound to dominate this space for years to come. In case you would like to check out a head-to-head comparison of the systems, you can headover to CNET.
Apple Carplay
Now, these platforms don’t have much in common with driverless cars, autonomous cars or whatever you choose to call them. They are merely a replacement for the “dumb” infotainment systems we have today. Here is an analogy that should explain what’s about to happen: next-gen infotainment platforms are to current systems what smartphones are to feature phones. They have a lot more potential for future development, integration with other devices, fast mobile broadband connectivity, and so on.
In terms of hardware, we will see more powerful System-on-Chip (SoC) solutions, capable of providing fast 4G data, stunning graphics, improved GPS capabilities, and even some cutting-edge features such as motion tracking.
For example, Nvidia is trying to leverage its GPU technology to enable motion tracking that should provide drivers with better situational awareness. This does not mean we’ll end up with driverless cars powered by Nvidia SoCs, but the technology could be used to look out for obstacles when parking, cars in our blind spots and so on. Not long ago, the computational power needed to pull this off was reserved for professional graphics solutions, but the latest crop of Nvidia Tegra processors features 192 GPU cores, or CUDA cores to be precise. Upcoming Tegras will feature even more powerful CPUs and additional CUDA cores (256 and more cores).
Even the current generation is powerful enough to enable the development of autonomous cars, let alone vehicles with some rudimentary motion tracking features. In case you are interested in the geeky details, you can checkout this Nvidia blog, detailing how a Jetson TK1 development board can be used for low-power sensing and autonomy.
The really good news is that the industry will be able to use vast amounts of CUDA code, developed for discrete graphics cards. It will work on Nvidia mobile platforms as well. The bad news is that Android Auto and Apple CarPlay simply won’t harness this potential, at least not yet. Instead, they will act as “second screens” for our mobile devices.

Bottom line; hardware will not be an issue.

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