Skip to main content

Highly automated driving ‘to spark adoption of centralised ADAS’

As vehicles become highly independent and begin to drive and react to traffic on their own, autonomous systems will aggregate and process data from a variety of on-board sensors and connected infrastructure, says ABI Research. This forces the industry to hit a hard reset on advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) architectures, currently dominated by distributed processing and smart sensors. Automotive OEMs will need to adopt new platforms based on powerful, centralised processors and high-speed low la
August 18, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
As vehicles become highly independent and begin to drive and react to traffic on their own, autonomous systems will aggregate and process data from a variety of on-board sensors and connected infrastructure, says 5725 ABI Research.

This forces the industry to hit a hard reset on advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) architectures, currently dominated by distributed processing and smart sensors. Automotive OEMs will need to adopt new platforms based on powerful, centralised processors and high-speed low latency networking. ABI Research forecasts 13 million vehicles with centralised ADAS platforms will ship in 2025.

James Hodgson, industry analyst at ABI Research, believes the distributed approach to ADAS systems will prove unsustainable as OEMs look to deliver highly automated driving around 2020. The new centralised ADAS architectures will unify sensing, processing, and actuation to deliver integrated decision-making for smooth path planning and effective collision avoidance.

This transition will present major opportunities for vendors new to the industry, as well as old incumbents, including NVIDIA, NXP, and Mobileye, who all announced centralised autonomous driving platforms. While each is in a different stage of development, all have common themes emerging, particularly in relation to processing power. The platforms average between eight and twelve teraflops (TFLOPs), a figure that is orders of magnitude beyond the typical smart sensor currently deployed in ADAS.

Physical separation of numerous dumb sensors and centralised processing will also open up opportunities for in-vehicle networking vendors. Ethernet-based solutions from vendors such as Marvell Semiconductor and Valens Semiconductor are well-positioned to meet the needs of high bandwidth and stringent automotive-grade requirements at a low cost.

"We are fast approaching the end of what can be achieved in automation within the confines of legacy architectures," concludes Hodgson. "While there are not yet any specific standards for centralised ADAS, it is interesting that three separate Tier 2s announced very similar platforms in quick succession. Vendors across the ecosystem need to take this time to plan accordingly in order to appropriately manage the industry transition toward centralised ADAS architectures."

Related Content

  • January 8, 2016
    LeddarTech receives Frost & Sullivan Product Innovation award
    Based on its recent analysis of the advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) market, Frost & Sullivan has awarded LeddarTech the 2016 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Product Innovation.The company markets an innovative time-of-flight optical detection and ranging technology, Leddar, which brings many new capabilities to the table. These include short- and long-range detection capabilities for a variety of automotive and transportation applications, narrow to wide fields of view, low sensitivity t
  • August 28, 2013
    Half of new vehicles shipping in North America to have driverless capabilities by 2032
    According to a new study by ABI research, the first driverless vehicles will appear in North America in the beginning of the next decade, evolving to more than 10 million robotic vehicles shipping in 2032. “While the technological feasibility of autonomous vehicles is being demonstrated by Google, Audi, Volvo, Bosch, and Continental, obstacles such as high costs and lack of legislation remain. On the other hand, the benefits of autonomous vehicles in terms of safety, cost savings, efficiency, and posit
  • November 7, 2013
    Driver monitoring systems to reach 64.8 million units by 2020
    New research from ABI Research forecasts that the global market for driver monitoring systems (DMS) will reach 64.8 million units by the end of 2020 with the majority of shipments being accounted for in vehicles sold in the Asia-Pacific region. Driver monitoring systems were first introduced as far back as 2006 when Toyota launched its innovative driver attention monitor system. Toyota’s system functions by directly monitoring the driver’s face using a discrete in-dash camera and was initially offered as
  • April 23, 2025
    Huawei advocates for change
    Achieving technological change also requires a shift in mindset, as Jacky Wang, vice president of Huawei’s Smart Transportation business unit, explains