Automotive technology is progressing so rapidly in the 21st century that it's hard to imagine a modern car without engineering marvels such as entry, built-in infotainment with navigation, Bluetooth®, Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity, smartphone integration, voice recognition, lane-keep assist and other advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Beyond these marvels are the latest battery-electric vehicle (BEV) innovations, accelerating automotive transformation to yet another level.
Simply put, today’s car is no longer just a “set of wheels.” It’s a smart, connected car, and increasingly, a cloud-connected, software-defined vehicle that runs on many millions more lines of code than ever before.
As cars advance technologically, vehicle networking platforms are evolving rapidly to make cars safer, smarter, more secure and more connected. They communicate with the outside world through a variety of wireless technologies to provide drivers with infotainment, navigation and ADAS capabilities. Over the years, automakers have added various wireless connectivity options to cars in an evolutionary manner. As a result, in today’s typical vehicle electrical architecture, wireless connectivity interfaces tend to be distributed among many different electronic control units (ECUs). However, this distributed approach creates wireless coexistence challenges and presents growing security risks.
With multiple wireless connections transmitting streams of data from the outside world into the car, each wireless link represents a potential attack surface and cybersecurity vulnerability. With wireless connections to the car being made at many, it is almost impossible to apply a consistent security firewall across all of the data entering the car in order to block malware and prevent cyberattacks. Today’s in-vehicle security technologies typically aim to monitor internal buses to detect and isolate malicious code after it enters the car network. That is important, but should be complemented by a consistent and state-of-art preemptive firewall solution based on a unified connectivity platform that seeks to prevent malware from entering the vehicle in the first place.
NXP has introduced an automotive-grade development platform that provides a unified connectivity domain which enables all external wireless connections to the car to be managed through a single subsystem. Dubbed OrangeBox, the new automotive connectivity development platform combines NXP’s broad automotive portfolio of wireless and wired connectivity solutions across vehicle-to-everything (V2X), secure car access and radio technologies, hardened security and third-party cellular modem technologies into a consolidated connectivity domain controller.
OrangeBox accelerates the transformation to software-defined vehicles by unifying automotive wireless connectivity through a domain-based architecture that also complements emerging zonal architectures. Designed as a modular platform, OrangeBox provides automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers with the flexibility to adapt to various regional requirements for cellular connectivity, V2X and secure access, as well as enabling software updates to incorporate evolving technologies. This platform approach accelerates time-to-market, reduces design cost and complexity—and provides a flexible development platform ready for application deployment.
A helpful way to understand the purpose and benefits of a unified connectivity domain for the car is to consider the analogous wireless transformation of the smart home. The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the proliferation of smart, connected devices in the home have ushered in a growing array of wireless protocols optimized for the smart home: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth® Low Energy , 802.15.4 (Thread), Zigbee, Z-Wave and, most recently, the Matter application layer protocol, providing secure home access.
To bring order to this fragmented wireless landscape, consumers and service providers now use smart hubs and gateways designed to integrate the many disparate wireless links inside the home, thereby simplifying network deployment, device commissioning, cloud connectivity and software updates.
Similarly, the OrangeBox development platform consolidates a wide variety of wireless technologies into a single automotive platform, bringing together secure wireless access, V2X, Wi-Fi® 6, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), ultra-wideband (UWB), AM/FM radio through a software-defined broadcast tuner, 4G LTE and 5G cellular modems, and GPS/GNSS into one domain. As a leading provider of silicon, software, security technology and development platforms for the automotive market, NXP provides many of these wireless technologies. OrangeBox readily supports cellular modems and GPS/GNSS receivers, which are supplied by third parties.
OrangeBox enables developers to create a unified connectivity domain with all external wireless connectivity managed in a single subsystem powered by NXP’s high-performance i.MX 8XLite applications processor, which is optimized for smart antenna, telematics, V2X connectivity and secure access. In addition, the platform supports leading wired vehicle network interfaces including gigabit Ethernet time-sensitive networking (TSN) and the CAN FD protocol (for flexible data rates).
The OrangeBox platform integrates seamlessly with the NXP GoldBox vehicle networking platform and the central vehicle gateway, enabling other automotive systems to easily leverage wireless connectivity. By complementing GoldBox, OrangeBox serves as a focal point where wireless data can enter and exit the car, from broadcast radio to Wi-Fi to 5G signal—providing the interface to the rest of the world.
OrangeBox provides a critical piece of the puzzle to build a modular, domain-based or zonal car architecture, spanning multiple antennas to the driver infotainment display and to safety-critical systems throughout the car. By providing a unified interface between the vehicle’s central gateway and its wireless technology, OrangeBox streamlines secure communications between the car and the world around it. This approach enables robust, state-of-art security protection with consistent security policies and intrusion prevention system (IPS) filtering that is applied to all wireless traffic entering the car. The platform helps developers to identify any potential RF coexistence challenges and it simplifies cloud connectivity and over-the-air (OTA) software updates that are essential to reducing cost of ownership.
The OrangeBox platform is a logical extension of the domain-based architecture shift that’s transforming automotive designs. It consolidates multiple connectivity technologies in one convenient place with a modular architecture that plugs into the automotive Ethernet backbone. By channeling all wireless connections into one domain, OrangeBox makes it easier for automakers to consistently apply advanced, cloud-managed cybersecurity technologies, such as next-generation firewalls, to data traffic entering or leaving the vehicle. The platform includes NXP’s EdgeLock® Secure Element devices as part of the secure car access and V2X functionality.
The OrangeBox automotive connectivity domain controller platform helps OEM and Tier 1 manufacturers reduce costs and accelerate time-to-market by providing developers with a comprehensive prototyping platform while leveraging software integration from NXP. Evaluate the many benefits of NXP OrangeBox connectivity domain controller development platform today.
Dan Loop is the Vice President and General Manager of the Automotive Edge Product Lines at NXP Semiconductors. He is responsible for the worldwide business development team supporting the i.MX applications processor product line for the automotive market. Dan has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines and MSTC degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
