An enabler for creating connected cars

Car manufacturers have now turned to user experience to differentiate their cars from other manufacturers. As consumers grow sophisticated by the day, car manufacturers are on the lookout for specialized, customized solutions that are also cost effective. Automotive Infotainment Systems that provide connectivity to the external world are of great demand since they offer a great user experience.

• The ability to connect to portable CE devices like smart phones, PDAs, PMPs, PNDs, and mass storage devices, thus enabling use cases for entertainment (e.g. playback of audio, video and pictures) and information (e.g. hands free telephony).
• The ability to connect to the Internet, enabling use cases, like on-demand real-time audio/video streaming, internet radio/television, online maps/directions, weather reports, industry news alerts, stock market updates, chat, etc. The framework currently supports on-demand video streaming from YouTube and internet radio powered by SHOUTcastTM Radio.
• The ability to connect to vehicle network to capture critical vehicle parameters and send them to a registered mobile phone as an alert, like fuel leak, battery leak, anti-theft alarm, low tire pressure etc. In addition, it can also allow certain function controls of the vehicle from the registered mobile phone, like ignition control, lights control, window control, door lock control etc.

The demonstrator of the framework is on an Intel AtomTM Russellville platform running Moblin IVI.

Our value proposition for Connectivity Framework includes:

• Allow plug-and-pay of multi-vendor components without investing significant efforts on integration and interoperability
• Platform and OS independent architecture
• Highly modular and componentized solution to provide scalability and configurability