The automotive industry is undergoing a period of great disruptive change. The influx of electronics into the car presents a major challenge for OEMs, who ultimately need to partner up with companies that will enable them to aid the development of their in-car connectivity.
Wind River describes its role in the automotive industry as an enabler of software technologies, integration expertise, and lifecycle services, combined with in-depth industry experience and a rich partner ecosystem.
“The fundamental role of Wind River in the automotive environment is to provide enablement,” explains Marques McCammon, Senior Director, Automotive Product Management at Wind River. “We analyse different levels in the value stream of the industry and specifically in the connected car and enable the end value that OEMs want to offer to the customer. If the objective of the OEM is to create higher levels of connectivity with web and web-related resources, we will enable them to develop and integrate this software as quickly, rapidly, cost effectively and robustly as possible.”
Increased connectivity, increased risk
A growing trend in the market is the increased desire for the consumer to have a higher level of connectivity and advanced features, says McCammon. At the same time, there is an apparent unwillingness to pay for it. “The combination of those two things creates a pressure of cost and timing on the OEMs and their supply base. Mobile devices iterate quickly but cars don’t, so OEMs have to be prudent in the way they make investments as they aren’t necessarily getting their costs covered,” he explains. “We align our product strategy to help OEMs minimise upfront investment and maximise connectivity of the OEM software offering.”
The company has been involved in secure operating systems since the beginning, says McCammon, and certifiable software systems are its primary software product. “That is the foundation of what we bring into the automotive space. A secure operating environment is our bread and butter.”
Working together
The company also considers open source for the connected car as vital for its development. “We are one of the founding members of the GENIVI Alliance, so we are very well embedded in the foundation and structure of the open source connected vehicle.” It also partners with Intel and the Linux Foundation in the Yocto Project, an open source collaboration project providing templates, tools and methods to help developers create embedded Linux-based systems.
“I think open source is critically important for automotive,” McCammon continues, noting that the benefits allow for various elements of the connected systems in the car to be verified to ensure they have proper operability when they reach the automotive environment. “Open source also provides an opportunity to leverage software in a way that should provide speed and cost efficiency. The challenge is making sure there is sufficient robustness in open source to meet the needs of automotive consumers, who are quite critical and not very forgiving.” Indeed, says McCammon, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) was one of the major detractors to some OEMs’ quality ratings last year; companies need to be robust in their delivery, he says, but take advantage of the speed and flexibility of open source. “That is one of our unique value propositions,” he says. “We have the ability to provide the bridge between what is traditional proprietary software and open source.”
Wind River works with many automotive OEMs and Tier 1s, including more than 70 different names in the automotive space in 2014. “We help with anything from just providing the software platform to helping to architect software implementation, making us an automotive solutions group, not just a software or services group.”
In the future, McCammon expects connectivity in the car to become ubiquitous, with everyone enjoying some base-level connectivity. “The car will be an extension of their everyday life, and connectivity will translate from home to the vehicle.” To support the rapid acceleration of automotive software development, Wind River will build a basic framework “that is by design more stable so that new innovations can sit on top of it without providing risks to the overall vehicle,” explains McCammon. He also predicts a more open community of people adding value into what can be done in a car. “This will be similar in fashion to the way the app world has developed for mobile devices. The aftermarket will take on a software element, causing a revolution in the automotive space.”
Rachel Boagey
