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."

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • City of Greenville adopts Wavetronix traffic sensor technology
    February 21, 2013
    The US City of Greenville has begun phasing in new vehicle detection technology at its traffic signals. The state-of-the-art traffic sensors are expected to provide numerous benefits to motorists including improved safety, cost savings, greater mobility and increased productivity. The city’s 115 vehicle-activated signalised intersections currently have more than 900 in-road sensors that detect the presence of vehicles. The loop detectors, which have been widely used throughout the US for more than four de
  • Hurdles to MaaS adoption highlighted
    January 25, 2018
    Jack Opiola talks to some MaaS advocates in the US. Cities will accommodate almost 60% of the world’s population by 2025 and technology is outpacing transportation plans and planners - putting extreme pressures upon planners and transportation systems alike. Big data, digital payments, ubiquitous communications, smartphone applications, on-demand travel and autonomous vehicles are all shredding existing transport plans. Never before has the pace of population growth and the tools to address this problem
  • GSM-R market coverage grows nearly 50 per cent
    December 19, 2014
    GSM-R has been used in Europe for more than ten years to provide voice and data communications for railway and acts as a radio bearer for train control messages. Mandated by the European Commission and supported by the dynamic railway industry in the region, the GSM-R system has established a significant market in Europe. Over the past few years the market extended to regions outside Europe including Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and Africa. Led by Nokia, Kapsch CarrierCom, and Huawei, GSM-R track coverage
  • Redflex enforces commitment to ethics
    May 29, 2013
    Redflex has introduced stringent ethical and procedural requirements following an investigation into corruption in Chicago. Like the Phoenix, which also happens to be the name of the company’s home city, Redflex Traffic Systems has been reborn. Following a headline-making public relations debacle late last year, Redflex has reinvented itself, establishing a series of stringent policies and procedures to ensure ethical business conduct, while continuing to deliver the traffic safety technology and services t