Continental said it had developed a cross domain High Performance Computer (HPC) in a car.

For the claimed first time, hosting cockpit and additional vehicle functions such as driving safety and automated parking in a real life vehicle application was made possible.

Serving as a showcase for what the development of software-defined vehicles (SDVs) can look like for automotive engineers, the SDV technology car uses cloud-based Continental Automotive Edge Framework (CAEdge) with the Snapdragon Ride Flex System on Chip (SoC) with pre-integrated Snapdragon Ride Vision perception stack from Qualcomm Technologies.

“With the SDV technology car, we are able to demonstrate [our] ecosystem from road to cloud, from virtual to real,” said Gilles Mabire, CTO at Continental Automotive.

The technology used includes automated parking functions with motion control, ultrasonic sensors, an integrated brake system and surround view cameras within an innovative cross domain HPC.
“The goal is not only to show how well functions work, but to validate how well multiple technologies can be integrated and work alongside each other in HPC-based vehicle architectures within a software defined vehicle,” said Jean-Francois Tarabbia, architecture and networking chief at Continental.

“This is a crucial step to convince the market that the goal to combine several control units in one HPC is not just feasible but can also render the cost benefits we want to achieve.”

The Flex SoC is designed for optimised cost, power and performance and makes it possible for automakers and suppliers to accelerate their time to market advantage and embrace a seamless, open, and adaptable approach to designing vehicles. Passengers benefit from an enhanced driving experience characterised by added assistance, safety, and comfort.

Enrico Salvatori from Qualcomm Europe added, “The Flex SoC provides a more integrated and adaptable approach to designing and developing vehicle architectures.”

The show car’s software architecture was developed using Continental’s own cloud-based development platform for the software defined vehicle. It connects the vehicle to the cloud and features a virtual workbench to simplify and accelerate development, supply, and maintenance of software intensive system functions. This offers automotive software engineers the opportunity to test software on a virtual HPC before deploying onto the physical hardware and to fix software related issues by debugging software directly in the cloud.