Smart

“Cars will be opened up to apps”

Smart vehicles and smart products in general, are a very “hot” subject. Today’s car is already online, and developments are placing increasing demands on the car’s communication links. To remain at the forefront Semcon is running a number of research projects within Vinnova’s Automotive Research programme. One of them is to predict how vehicles’ electrical architecture will look by 2020.

“There are a huge amount of nodes which communicate with each other and also with the outside world,” says Johan Kristensson, who works on embedded systems. Johan is also leading the Smart team in Sweden.

“Further consequences of vehicles becoming smarter is that HMI – that is, how interfaces and interaction work – is developing at a furious pace,” Anders Sundin, a Semcon HMI expert, says.

HMI has become “the window of connectivity.” This is particularly noticeable in the German car market, but Sweden also has ambitions to take a leading role, including the HMI research project Efesos (www.efesos.net ).

Smart or as some call it - Connected, is one of the most interesting areas in terms of transforming the car into a communication hub towards different networks, internet, infrastructure, dealers etc. 

The picture below lists the different areas of future and present infotainment;

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