Edge computing is one of the hottest keywords of 2022 because it will bring advantages in many sectors, including the automotive industry with applications both in the Factory Edge field, for production and logistics processes, and Vehicle Edge, or the basis for connected vehicles.
Edge computing is one of the hottest keywords of 2022 because it will bring advantages in many sectors, including the automotive industry with applications both in the Factory Edge field, for production and logistics processes, and Vehicle Edge, or the basis for connected vehicles.
“Edge computing implementations in the automotive sector will further boost the development of newly developed, autonomous and connected vehicles that are increasingly software-controlled.” This is the thinking of Harald Ruckriegel, Chief Technologist and Strategic Business Development Automotive at Red Hat, who outlines some of the prominent trends that will affect the sector. Red Hat is a US multinational that develops open-source software for companies with an innovative approach to simplify apps‘ development, deployment, and scalability.
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Software-defined everything means the decoupling of software from hardware which, in addition to independence from the hardware itself, allows standardization by offering multiple advantages, including cost reduction, higher levels of scalability and flexibility, and simplified management.
Removing software from hardware can also deliver new functions more quickly. In principle, the software-defined approach will gain importance from the edge, i.e., the vehicle, the data center to the cloud.
The trend to follow has received a boost from the shortage of chips, which has also hit the automotive sector heavily, perhaps more than other markets. Among the reasons is that OEMs in the industry are not among the main customers of chipmakers, which instead generate significantly higher sales volumes in other sectors.
In the automotive sector, edge computing will also significantly impact the manufacturer’s value chain, resulting in a network spanning from R&D, sales and marketing to manufacturing and after-sales. It follows a more vital link between the Pre-SOP (start of production), SOP and Post-SOP phases whereby previously separate worlds such as Vehicle Edge and Factory Edge will come closer. The Vehicle Edge concerns onboard and offboard technologies related to the vehicle and constitutes a fundamental prerequisite for implementing the Aces concept (Autonomous, Connected, Electrified and Shared / Services).
On the other hand, the Factory Edge represents the basis for innovative Industry 4.0 and IoT scenarios and, therefore, for efficient and intelligent business processes capable of supporting the development of intelligent vehicles. Data can be obtained through increasing networking from the Connected Car, which feeds directly into the development and production process. In addition, more complex use cases can also be implemented, ranging from vehicle-specific intelligent car functions to service themes such as mobility and ride-sharing.
Many future developments are moving in the direction of open source. So far, standardization in the automotive segment has been driven by development-focused partnerships such as Autosar through specification. The result is pervasive and complex standards that involve a great deal of work for OEMs. In addition, the “standardization via open source” approach is becoming more and more popular, supporting implementation-driven standardization where it is possible to rely on a complete and ever-growing open source ecosystem.
Increasing levels of interconnection and digitization in the automotive sector also require a hybrid cloud or multi-cloud IT infrastructure because it is the only way to deliver applications in short development cycles in a dynamically scalable environment.
The edge approach places vital integration requirements, for example, in terms of real-time processing, security or protection. Consequently, an open hybrid cloud platform must also support edge deployments, i.e. it must function as a common horizontal platform that offers a smooth development and operation experience from core to edge. An example of such a platform is the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform.
Most automotive OEMs are currently stepping up their activities and development projects around autonomous driving and driver assistance systems, intelligent cars and infotainment, and mobility services and smart cities. In this sense, edge computing and hybrid cloud models are key technology drivers, and open source solutions often represent the ideal underlying infrastructure platform.
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