MOST Infotainment Backbone of Auto Industry

The Media Oriented Systems Transport cooperation is in the process of rolling out its MOST150 technology, which uses a single plastic fiber-optic cable to transmit multiple audio, video and data signals throughout a vehicle.

When paired with MOST 3.0, which provides a set of codes allowing all devices on the cable to “speak” to one another, MOST150 allows for a common architecture to be used by auto makers and suppliers, says Henry Muyshondt, MOST technical liaison.

“MOST is now coming out with its third generation, running at 150 megabytes per second,” he says at Convergence. “This third generation of MOST adds an ethernet channel. You can run up to 18 standard-definition video streams, plus three high-definition video screens, plus an ethernet channel, all in parallel.”

The MOST cooperation was founded in 1998 by BMW AG, Daimler AG and a handful of key suppliers to standardize the hardware utilized by in-vehicle infotainment systems.

Once the hardware was commonized, MOST developed a common set of system codes. Today, MOST has become the infotainment “backbone” of the industry, Muyshondt says.

MOST began as proprietary technology, but its founders chose to open the technology up to other companies. “There was no advantage for this to be proprietary,” Muyshondt says.

MOST now includes 16 auto makers — including German, European and Korean manufacturers — and more than 75 suppliers around the world.

While the majority of global auto makers count themselves as members of MOST, some have yet to utilize the system and the common set of codes.