Consumers today are focused on various additional features provided by automobile companies, one of which is automotive infotainment. Infotainment is a powerful system that makes the driving experience better for users. People can listen to music, make calls hands-free and at the same time refer to navigation tools. The system works in collaboration with hardware and software and mobile technologies. Initially, frequency of technical innovation was high and automobile vendors were facing issues to maintain the balance. This case study explains how Genivi Alliance, helped automotive leaders save time and efforts while developing software part of the automotive infotainment systems.

Automotive infotainment allows you to connect your smart devices to the music system of your car. It helps drivers keep busy by songs, use navigation tools and make calls while driving. This is possible with the use of hands free tools like Bluetooth devices. Last couple of decades have observed considerable growth in the automobile industry and increased demand of infotainment systems.

Automotive infotainment systems worked on a smart phone, infotainment system and Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI). The growing popularity of smart devices and navigation apps led to consumer’s demand of a similar interface with the existing infotainment system. However, the cost of development and validating the systems were on the higher side and a matter of concern for OEM’s in industry. Headunit is the heart of all automotive solutions and is often most complex unit, comprising almost 70% of the total coding done for the automobile. The headunit currently provides logical interface between the car and the user space.  Also, its functionality sets the standards for user experience with the device.

The process of coding and finding the perfect middleware system which helps in smooth functioning. As the middleware system was developed by independent organization various gaps and compatibility issues were identified. Problems like comprehensive validation and inconsistency in the demands of automotive providers was another concern. The solution to all these issues was identified in the form of open-source code.

What is Genivi alliance Open-source?

Open-source software is a software where the source code is available for users to study, change and distribute. This is a licensed solution that is normally worked in a collaborative manner by public. One such trusted name in open source software’s is “GENIVI Alliance”.

Genivi Alliance delivers an open connectivity platform that speeds-up advanced solutions that is depended on open software. The Genivi alliance has created a strong group where automotive experts and industry leaders together develop adoptable standards and useful open source code. Genivi is speeding the automotive ecosystem and motivating innovations based on the leading trends which includes system on a chip (SOC), advanced user interface, car-to-cloud connectivity, software-over-the-air (SOTA) in autonomous vehicles.

Genivi Alliance works on three basic components to provide automobile manufactures with optimum code source. The Genivi code can either be re-used or modified to meet the automotive requirements. The Genivi platform is created by adding of genivi code to a distribution which can be created for open source platform. Genivi Reference is the third part of the alliance and is the method by which the Genivi platform is displayed within open sources.

Genivi is a popular and has helped many automotive companies and related automotive infotainment providers. Let’s take a look at two stories that have succeed with the help of Genivi Alliance.

The Story of Bosch

Bosch is world’s largest independent supplier of high end infotainment systems that provides smart integrations to drivers. Drivers can experience entertainment, navigation, driver assistance and other infotainment related experiences. However, with growing digital innovations Bosch understood that there would be a steady growth in demand on the system architecture by various consumer electronics devices used in automobiles.  Because of this growing demand the existing system will need to change with the infotainment systems to further work with innovative multimedia functions future updates.  The need for having updated system software’s will always be present during the life cycle of every vehicle, was evident.

In short, Bosch required a system that would be connected car and have features like cloud access, smartphone integration, fast updates, application frameworks and at the same time ensuring that it meets the security and privacy requirements. The traditional and favored requirement for safety, quality, cost, maintainability of alternatives were valid and desirable options. The company understood that they needed a new approach to fulfill software requirements and fulfill the requirement of connected cars.

Together Bosch and GENIVI Alliance made vital use of open source software, standard application programming interface and a pre-integrated platform. This allowed Bosch to focus on innovation for customers where they worked along with Denso and Advanced Driver Information Technology (ADIT), to produce platform technologies for following generation infotainment systems. Results indicate a clear win for the company with respect to cost, cost per device and metrics on time.

The BMW Case Study:

BMW, the popular brand is known for its fleet of luxury vehicles and giving memorable driving experiences to patrons. However, in the year of 2007, BMW was experiencing the issue of large amount of software required in cars and the cost and time involved in making these software’s. Typically a car would need 50-100 million lines of codes and around 18 months for software development life cycle. The challenge was to meet the fast changing and growing consumer demand by providing appropriate software solutions.

The company in collaboration with some other automakers and suppliers created a community which enabled them to develop head-unit system that is made with the help of open source platforms and was based on Linux core service.

With the help of GENIVI Alliance open source platform, BMW powers their infotainment system and Navigation head units. During the spring time of the year 2013, BMW introduced the first range of GENIVI empowered products and by the time the Fall-season was coming to an end, there were many similar BMW products being introduced in the market.

Success of open source implementation is visible by the increased number of head units being built with the help of it. BMW is successfully providing the best of luxury experiences to its valued clients. BMW has gained from the implementation of the open source software in the first phase but the actual benefits are seen in the second phase of head-units being rolled out. BMW is making the most by reusing of the open source developed middleware letting more effective allocation of time and money to develop better and enhanced customer functionality. Owing to the benefits of GENIVI Alliance, BMW is already in the production of second generation units.