In fact, some infotainment systems now offer dozens of features designed to attract the consumer - everything from dynamic navigation to digital radio, DVD playback, real-time traffic reports, voice-activated cellular phone operation, and connectivity with portable MP3 players. To support such features, an in-car infotainment system must incorporate software that is complex, yet extremely reliable - a difficult combination to achieve. Moreover, the software must be easy to upgrade. That way, it can support any new multimedia formats, Internet standards, or other services that consumers may demand. Until now, however, such upgrades have proved to be a major inconvenience for car owners and automakers alike. Often, this is because the in-car device uses a dedicated hardware/software architecture designed to support only a predefined set of features. As a result, many auto suppliers are adopting open computing platforms that can accommodate a variety of applications or customer requirements without significant re-engineering. In most cases, these platforms combine a general-purpose 32-bit CPU with a standard-based real time operating system (RTOS). Moreover, the OS chosen typically provides virtual mode architecture with support for memory protection. This architecture helps to ensure that software deployed on the platform is both reliable and upgradable.
Extensible multimedia
Multimedia offers an excellent example of how auto suppliers are changing the way they design and deploy software. Until recently, methods for implementing multimedia in the vehicle had few provisions for supporting new media formats. Simply adding a new codec could involve long and costly modifications to both hardware and software. The situation is changing, however, as automotive RTOS introduce support for modular multimedia frameworks - the same types of framework that have made multimedia so pervasive on the desktop. In a well-implemented multimedia framework, the components responsible for reading/streaming and for writing/displaying/playing are already provided. So is support for common formats such as MP3, WMA, OggVorbis, AIFF, AU, AVI, MIDI, WAV, and CD audio. Consequently, developers only have to implement parsers and decoders for the proprietary formats they wish to support. Moreover, applications can access multimedia in a single, uniform manner, regardless of how the codecs are implemented. As a result, codecs can be changed or dynamically updated without modifying any of the applications that use them.
High-end graphics, low-end hardware
3D graphics offer another example of how automotive developers are moving towards highly reusable software architectures. As a graphics technology, 3D offers many potential benefits. An in-car navigation system, for instance, can use 3D to present an intuitive «bird's eye" view of the road ahead or to display an accurate rendering of local buildings and landmarks. Unfortunately, traditional 3D implementations for embedded systems have relied on proprietary software libraries created for a specific graphics chip. That problem is disappearing, thanks to OpenGL ES, a new, platform-independent library for implementing 3D graphics in resourceconstrained devices. Despite its small footprint, OpenGL ES supports advanced features such as alpha blending, Gouraud shading, and texture mapping. Just as important, an OpenGL ES application can, without code modifications, run on multiple graphics chips and operating systems. Moreover, OpenGL ES provides a well-defined subset of OpenGL, the most widely used 3D graphics API in the computer industry. As a result, development teams can tap into a wealth of OpenGL programming expertise, source code, and documentation.
Getting connected
Increasingly, automotive platforms must interact with a variety of consumer devices, including MP3/CD/DVD players, USB storage keys, and digital media cards, not to mention future devices based on WiFi and Bluetooth data networking. To support this requirement, system designers are adopting highly modular and dynamic software architectures, such as that supported by the QNX Neutrino microkernel RTOS. In this microkernel architecture, the system can mount and unmount file systems «on the fly," as devices are plugged in or out. The system can also dynamically start and stop any hardware drivers the devices may require. Better yet, the system can support new media devices by simply downloading a small software «patch."
Reliable mass storage
Reliable mass storage is becoming a serious requirement for in-car infotainment systems. For instance, consumers now expect their cars to rip, encode, store, and play back media tracks. Simultaneously, many navigation systems need mass storage for maps and other data. The problem, of course, is maintaining data integrity in the harsh environment of the car, where unexpected power fluctuations can easily corrupt a conventional file system. Consequently, there is a fast-growing trend to adopt transactional file systems, which use atomic transactions to ensure integrity of all file and directory operations, even in the event of power failure.
Remote upgrades
Performing remote upgrades and configuration of in-car infotainment systems remains a key challenge. Consequently, many automakers are moving toward approaches based on industry standards such as Web services and OSGi. Web services follow established middleware-design principles and employ open standards such as XML, SOAP, UDDI, and WSDL. As a result, they can allow any invehicle application, written in any programming language, to access virtually any type of remote information or service. Just as important, the Web services specification allows developers to implement both client and server applications on the same in-car device. Consequently, developers can implement remote monitoring, remote software upgrades, and various other life-cycle management services over both private and public networks, including the Internet. Until recently, Web services have been used predominantly in the corporate IT infrastructure. However, companies like QNX are now working on optimising Web services for the tight memory constraints of in-vehicle devices and other embedded systems.
Reusable platforms
In summary, software has become the engine that enables in-car infotainment systems to adapt quickly to consumer demands. The trend today, and in the future, is to employ software architectures that are standard-based, reusable, and highly scalable. That way, car manufacturers can use just one platform, whether they are building low-cost systems for economy cars or high-end solutions for luxury sedans.
