This Demo is featuring a unique development kit as multi-gateway solution for all major automotive communication Interfaces.
Automotive ethernet will become a game changer for the next generation of vehicles and mobility. Exponential growth in bandwidth together with a quality of service allows innovative new architectures to improve comfort and safety and to pave the way to a highly assisted and finally the fully autonomous car. Have a look to our demonstrator showing different network configurations, the effect of link failures to it, and finally countermeasures that could be taken to increase the quality and availability of the network traffic in a real vehicle.
Video Transcript
UWE SCHAEFER: In a world switched on, Automotive Ethernet will become a game changer for the next generation of vehicles and mobility. While CAN has dominated the car network for nearly decades, we face a revolution for the in-vehicle architecture and moving to Ethernet-based networks. Exponential growth in bandwidth, combined with quality of service, allows innovative new architectures to improve comfort and safety in order to pave the way to a highly assisted and finally, the fully autonomous car.
THORSTEN HOFFLEIT: With our partner CETITEC, we have developed this evaluation platform called Vehicle Computer 2. It represents a multi - gateway solution that supports all major automotive communication interfaces, covering LIN, CAN, FlexRay, MOST, and Automotive Ethernet, and allows flexible routing between all of them.
The box is equipped with the powerful Renesas R-Car H3 SoC, the RH850 /F1K microprocessor, and an FPGA based implementation of an Ethernet TSN switch. With these components, the box provides the most common automotive interfaces in a robust housing. The box can be used by OEMs, Tier1’s for evaluation, prototyping, or data logging, and expands the existing toolkits with automotive specific requirements.
Due to the variety of interfaces, many use cases are possible. Central Gateway, Zone ECU, or Central Computer are just a few examples.
UWE SCHAEFER: In order to demonstrate this technology and to showcase the features of deterministic Ethernet, we developed a demo based on the VC2 in an in-vehicle network with a zone-based architecture. The demo consists of five gateway ECUs that are connected by Automotive Ethernet and CAN FD in different network structures, such as ring, star, or mesh. A centerpiece of the demo is the ability to operate the IEEE 802.1 CB standard for frame replication and elimination for redundant communication.
These simple RC type model cars have been equipped with front cameras that send the live stream from the driving track to the front zone ECUs using wireless technology. These ECUs forward the video to the central ECU for track detection, path planning, and driving control. The steering and driving commands are then sent by the rear zone ECUs to the RC control of the model cars. With disabled frame replication mode, any failure on a link will immediately stop the car in operation. Now, after enabling frame replication, the cars move on, because the existing links between the boxes will use both directions. Mesh mode offers more redundant links between the boxes. Such configuration tolerates more link failures. Finally, a mixed network with CAN FD and Ethernet also covers network diversification, which is an important element for functional safety. The backup for control traffic is covered by CAN FD. So even with failures on both Ethernet links, the actuation control is still in operation.
Thank you very much for your attention. I hope to see you soon on a live event from Renesas.