Body & Comfort – Creating a Pleasant Environment

In addition to their operation, providing an effective means of control is important. Over the last 15 years, there has been a shift away from using buttons, switches and dials, with these being replaced by touch displays. As these can still, however, present a distraction for drivers, there is increasing interest in HMIs that require less attention and do not call for drivers to take their eyes off the road. ToF will allow simple gesture recognition to be conducted, so the sound system's volume can be adjusted, a different radio station picked, or a phone call initiated - all without the driver’s attention needing to be averted.

This is being widely incorporated into vehicle infotainment systems where Ethernet communication is in use, so as to provide the necessary synchronisation to audio and video streams. Since Ethernet does not normally support deterministic operation, ABV is needed to ensure that the different multimedia endpoints are kept in time with one another. Take the speakers in a vehicle’s sound system as an example; without the determinism that ABV provides to the Ethernet infrastructure, the output from different speakers would be out of synch - leading to poorer audio quality being experienced.

This will be of particular value as we move into an era of autonomous vehicles being a pooled resource, with people ordering one to pick them up as required.

This will mandate inclusion of high integrity DDR3, DDR4 and DDR5 memory resources. DDR5 is becoming the standard in vehicles, offering higher bandwidth with lower power consumption to support AI-driven applications and edge computing. Already on the horizon is DDR6: with base speeds of 17,600 MT/s, extended memory channels, and even greater energy efficiency, it will further revolutionize data processing in the automotive industry. Another important trend in automotive storage is the integration of advanced solutions that enable the faster processing of vehicle data, particularly for autonomous driving systems. Such systems require rapid access to substantial data sets to support decision-making processes, and eMMC and UFS storage solutions provide the necessary density, resilience and high read/write speeds. Today, eMMC is often integrated with energy-saving DRAM components within a single, compact multi-chip package (MCP), which reduces the overall size and simplifies the development process while ultimately lowering costs.

They provide occupants with the ability to adjust seating, as well as supporting the operation of climate control systems, contributing to the stabilisation systems used to ensure a smooth ride and being an integral part of window and sunroof opening/closing mechanisms.