Laying the foundation for user-defined
vehicles, extending Level 2+ automated driving and enabling the zonal architectures that are shaping tomorrow’s
connected vehicles are big jobs. These undertakings call for cross collaboration with a strong technology ecosystem.
NXP is proud to work with an elite team of software and hardware companies to help BlueBox 3.0 deliver its full potential
to our joint customers.
Collaboration on Safe, Reliable and Scalable Autonomous Driving Solutions
NXP and Kalray are collaborating to deliver on
a common hardware and software platform for safe, reliable and scalable autonomous driving solutions. These
solutions encompass the near-term delivery of L2+ and full automation in the long-term. Within the NXP BlueBox
Platform and integration in the software development environment, Kalray MPPA® (massively parallel
processor array) intelligently accelerates the perception and modeling required for the next steps in the automated
driving roadmap.
Kalray’s MPPA® intelligent processors ease the development of safe and ready-to-certify solutions, thanks
to its deterministic architecture, its ability to isolate execution domains and guarantee freedom from interference
together with its compliance with the ISO 26262 standard.
MPPA® processors are not only capable of executing AI algorithms but can also simultaneously execute a
wide set of different processing such as mathematical algorithms, signal processing and networking software stacks
with different levels of criticality on the same chip. This heterogenous multi-processing capability is also a
critical requirement for autonomous vehicles, and is a unique capability of Kalray’s Coolidge™, 3rd
generation of MPPA® processor.
Memory and Automotive Experts Delivering Optimized Memory Products for Automotive Applications
At the heart of BlueBox 3.0 is a
powerful combination of leading memory and storage technologies fueling the platform’s advanced automotive
high-performance computing. These include Micron Technology’s high-speed NOR flash, e.MMC flash, NVMe SSDs, DDR4 and
LPDDR4x DRAM, which work in concert to drive NXP Layerscape LX2160A’s and S32G’s processors. These gains enhance the
intelligence and connectivity possible for next-generation vehicle architectures and ADAS systems. Micron’s memory
and storage is critical for managing the vast amounts of automotive data generated by smart radars, sensors and
cameras—enabling scalable semi-autonomous and autonomous applications.
“With automotive compute and connectivity demand on the rise, the automotive industry is undergoing one of the most
significant transformations since the invention of cars themselves,” said Kris Baxter, corporate vice president and
general manager of Micron’s Embedded Business Unit. “Traditional distributed architecture can no longer keep pace
with the innovation today’s consumers expect in their vehicles. By delivering our leading-edge automotive-grade
memory and storage as part of NXP BlueBox 3.0, we are arming industry leaders with the powerful compute platform
they need to design safe and intelligent vehicles.”
Micron’s broad portfolio of volatile and nonvolatile memory products are rigorously tested and optimized for
automotive applications to ensure they can function in extreme environments. Micron automotive memory and storage
solutions offer the increased reliability, fast boot times, high bandwidth, low power and small footprint required
by today’s compute-intensive automotive applications.
Micron has 30 years of automotive expertise, innovation and engineering experience and is the market share leader,
supplying its automotive memory and storage to all leading automotive manufacturers. Micron is one of the first
memory solutions providers to earn International Automotive Task Force (IATF) 16949:2016 quality certification, a
clear reflection of Micron’s relentless commitment to quality. For more information on Micron Technology’s
automotive memory solutions, visit: Micron.
Specialists in Motion Planning for Automated Driving
Embotech specializes in motion planning
for autonomous driving. Its success lies in the safe execution of sophisticated decision-making algorithms that
ultimately send steering, accelerating and braking commands to the vehicle. Embotech’s software runs on the powerful
NXP LX2160A to enable high performance automated driving. Additionally, in the event of a system malfunction, the
software runs the firm’s backup motion planner concurrently on the safe and redundant NXP S32G. This safety backup
is an essential step towards achieving ASIL B functional safety certification, which Embotech aims to achieve by the
end of 2021. BlueBox 3.0 is an ideal platform for safe and certifiable autonomous driving collaboration. For more
information visit: Embotech.
Pressing the Boundaries of Precision Traffic and Sensor Simulation
dSPACE’s data-driven development
toolchain empowers safe autonomous driving. The physics-based ASM traffic solution supports the creation of complex
road networks, whereby designers can define sophisticated traffic scenarios on virtual roads among static and
movable objects, like traffic signs and pedestrians. Additionally, physical sensors (radar, lidar and camera) can be
simulated for both software-in-the-loop (SIL) and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing of complex autonomous driving
and ADAS systems. dSPACE supports all raw data sensor interfaces including SerDes and MIPI CSI-2℠.
Delivering High-Performance Middleware for Real-Time Critical Systems
eProsima is focused on high-performance middleware. Its main product, eProsima Fast DDS, is a high-performance middleware for real-time and
critical systems. It powers the communications between the different components of the BlueBox 3.0.
NXP and eProsima joined forces to create a strikingly fast PCIe transport for eProsima Fast DDS, to get the most of
the BlueBox hardware. eProsima is used by tens of thousands of developers to create real-time high-performance
distributed systems for critical applications in sectors such as defense, robotics and automotive. Learn more about
eProsima here and
eProsima Fast DDS at eProsima Fast DDS.
The Edge Case state-of-the-art live
safety case software, developed by Edge Case Research, is a standards-based validation platform designed
to track metrics and provide insights to inform safe deployment decisions. Our partnership with NXP leverages the
strengths of our architecture and delivers a step forward in accelerating the future of highly automated vehicle
safely.
Delivering Safe Mixed-Criticality Software
Green Hills Software and NXP have collaborated to enable engineers
to build mixed-criticality software for highly automated vehicle systems running on the BlueBox autonomous driving
development platform from NXP. The combined solution is powered by the ASIL D INTEGRITY® real-time
operating system and provides a trusted software foundation to bridge development programs to production readiness.
Critical applications such as path planning, health monitoring and DDS communications run side-by-side with less
critical frameworks such as Linux, all on the same processor. Advanced development tools from Green Hills help speed
debugging and deployment on the heterogenous multicore system.
Addressing the Full Breadth of Autonomous Development Through Software
Intempora’s software can address all stages of the development process for
autonomous driving from prototyping to testing and validation. RTMaps (real-time multisensor applications), a
component-based development and execution environment, allows developers to easily develop and deploy algorithms for
autonomous driving that respond promptly and precisely to the perceived environment with real or simulated data. As
a versatile and powerful framework RTMaps can take advantage of the hardware acceleration and the full processing
capabilities offered by the BlueBox.
Learn more at Intempora.
Automotive-Grade Enabling Advanced Zonal E/E Architectures with Connectivity Software for Electric and Autonomous
Vehicles
Real-time innovations (RTI) has
integrated the power and functionality of its DDS-based Connext Drive® connectivity software with NXP’s
BlueBox 3.0. Connext Drive is the standard-based software framework used globally in vehicle production
environments. It manages complex data distribution for real-time connectivity in the autonomous systems used
globally in vehicle production environments. By running Connext Drive natively through S32G vehicle network
processors, RTI and NXP are enabling a next-generation zonal E/E architecture through a real-time, scalable and
safety-certifiable platform that connects the entire system from safety domain to backend.
In addition, RTI and NXP are working to integrate Connext Drive with time sensitive networking (TSN) on the S32G
network processor and SJA1110 network switch. This aims to provide highly-reliable and predictable delivery, time
synchronization and bandwidth allocation for TSN applications while expanding functionality through redundancy,
reliability, monitoring and content-based filtering.
Edge-AI Software Achieves Higher Accuracy for L2+ Models and Runs Them Faster at the Edge
RTeraki’s edge-AI software delivers
higher accuracy to customers’ AI-models. It does so by intelligently pre-processing and selecting relevant
information from sensor data to train and run AI-models efficiently in the car. The lightweight footprint allows to
run it in real-time on low-powered, production hardware. The Teraki embedded Client runs on S32G, inside the
BlueBox, where it performs sensor fusion of e.g. IMU-Camera, camera-radar and camera-lidar signals. The intelligent
pre-processing enables this to be done on one Arm-core of the BlueBox. Customers’ AI-models are trained 10X-20X
faster, and more importantly, achieve 10%-30% higher accuracy. This is essential for better sensor fusion, ADAS, AD
and increased safety.
How it works?
Teraki Flyers
MicroSys provides a broad product
portfolio beginning from Systems on Module up to full turnkey systems. NXP’s Arm™ based CPUs and
controllers are the foundation of MicroSys miriac™ branded modules and system level products. NXP’s S32
Platform™ with its integrated and heterogenous configuration of microprocessors and controllers for
automated driving, as well as the S32G for next-gen gateways in vehicle applications are the core of the
miriac™ MPX-S32G274A SoM, which is incorporated into the NXP BlueBox 3.0.
The collaboration enables a short-term and low risk development of products that target segments in automation,
avionics, automotive, medical, railways and transportation, construction and defense market respect for effectual
norms (ISO13849, ISO26262, IEC61508, DO-160, EN50155, ISO13485,…) and requirements (extended temperature, rugged
design,…). For more information visit: MicroSys.
OEMs are currently primarily focused on
demonstrating ADAS functionality and validating new EE architectures like zonal architecture. These ground-breaking
architectures will soon require safety and security certification. ProvenRun is collaborating with NXP and its partners to address these
requirements with their secure EE ProvenCore.
