Industry Voices | Enhanced Computing Power Essential for SDV

Developing a standardized approach to harness the power of modern hardware accelerators in a safe and efficient way is essential in furthering the advancement of software defined vehicles (SDV).

The need exists for a unified solution that allows accelerators to be utilized in a safety-compliant manner while remaining independent of specific hardware vendors.

Modern vehicles increasingly rely on high-performance computing systems, such as powerful system-on-chips (SoCs) to manage complex applications like autonomous driving, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), in-vehicle infotainment systems and connected vehicle services. These systems require immense computational power, which is often provided by specialized hardware accelerators such as GPUs, NPUs and FPGAs.

The absence of a unified, safe solution represents a dual challenge:

In response, the AUTOSAR consortium – a leading global development partnership of OEMs, Tier1s and technology companies – has been working on addressing the toughest automotive industry challenges. AUTOSAR members have developed a proof of concept that emphasizes the decoupling of software from hardware, thus promising to revolutionize how vehicles are developed, updated and maintained. By enabling over-the-air updates and enhancing modularity, SDV aims to create a flexible and future-proof vehicle architecture.

The ultimate goal of the collaboration with AUTOSAR, particularly working with the AUTOSAR Adaptive Platform, is the development of a standardized approach to safe hardware acceleration within the context of SDV.

This initiative aims to create a software abstraction layer that allows software to fully leverage the computational power of modern SoCs while maintaining safety compliance. The goal is to provide a set of standardized application programming interfaces that can be used across different hardware platforms, ensuring that automotive software can be both hardware-independent and safety-compliant.

The implications of this work are profound. Without a safe and standardized approach to hardware acceleration, the full potential of SDV cannot be realized. Vehicles would either be unable to utilize the advanced computational capabilities of modern hardware or would do so at the risk of compromising safety. Through AUTOSAR, our focus is to ensure that the promise of SDV can be delivered without sacrificing the safety and reliability that drivers depend on.

The SDV Alliance unites the collaborative efforts of AUTOSAR, COVESA, Eclipse SDV and SOAFEE to jointly establish industry standards for the future of the SDV ecosystem.