Linux Foundation automotive group using open source to enable in-car infotainment
Automotive Grade Linux (AGL), an open source project hosted by the Linux Foundation and focused on connected vehicles, recently revealed the latest infotainment platform, Unified Code Base (UCB) 4.0, alongside a new Virtualization Expert Group (EG-VIRT) dedicated to developing a virtualized architecture capable of consolidating multiple applications onto a single in-car computer.
The group does not integrate open source with proprietary products. Instead, AGL builds 70% to 80% of a base infotainment platform. The remaining portion can be customized by automakers to make it feel like their own brand.
Open source projects are playing an increasingly important role in connecting the internet of things (IoT) — connected vehicles included. The Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF) and Linux Foundation, for instance, are collaborating on the IoTivity project to provide a framework for connecting billions of IoT devices. Accompanying open source projects are open source standards, which serve as a set of guidelines for updating and managing software.
“The automotive industry is starting to embrace an open innovation mindset, and OEMs and suppliers are realizing that collaboration and joint development benefit the entire industry,” said Dan Cauchy, General Manager of Automotive at The Linux Foundation, in a press statement. “The AGL UCB provides the industry with a single, shared platform that will ultimately reduce fragmentation, improve time-to-market and reduce the cost of software development for everyone.”
AGL’s Unified Code Base can serve as the de facto standard for the auto industry. AGL has been around for about five years. It is the sole organization intending to manage all the software in a car, including telematics, autonomous driving and instrument cluster, on the same piece of hardware.
These efforts are by no means easy. Vehicles are being integrated with an increasing number of electronic components with each new release every six to 12 months. The links between these devices are often discovered to be insecure, making the synthesis of multiple electronics difficult to say the least. That is why the EG-VIRT was developed.
The EG-VIRT intends to identify a hypervisor and create an AGL virtualized architecture. A hypervisor is a software program that abstracts physical physical resources, like memory, bandwidth and storage, and allocate them to virtual machines (VMs) running on the hardware.
Automakers stand to reap from the benefits of virtualization in a similar way the telecomm industry has. Since VMs run on inexpensive nodes rather than proprietary hardware, automakers can spend less money on the physical materials to build a car. In addition, a virtualized platform makes it easier to add additional features to the vehicle.
“This can potentially reduce development costs by enabling OEMs to run independent operating systems simultaneously from a single hardware board,” said AGL. “Virtualization can also add another layer of security by isolating safety critical functions from the rest of the operating system, so that the software can’t access critical controls like the vehicle CAN bus.”
The debut of the UCB 4.0 follows in the foot trails of Toyota announcing its adoption of the AGL platform, which will accompany 2018 Toyota Camry models in the United States.
