Key Trends
Future of in-car Connectivity – Ethernet
Mobility
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Introduction
Ethernet is the most widely installed local area network (LAN) technology. It defines two units of transmission – packet and frame. Each frame is wrapped in a packet and affixes several bytes of information used in establishing the connection. It uses twisted pair cables or optical fibers. Automotive Ethernet is the use of an Ethernet-based network for connections between in-vehicle electronic systems.
Cabling is the 3rd highest cost component in a car and the 3rd heaviest component in a car – only surpassed in both cases by the chassis and the engine. Simplifying and reducing cabling with the use of Ethernet reduces not only fuel consumption and repair issues, but also manufacturing costs and production time.
Developed in the 1970s, Ethernet is a mature technology of use in the wider networking market. However, it hasn’t been widely used in the automotive industry until recent years
Automotive Ethernet is a tailored Ethernet designed for Automotive Industry which enables faster data communication.
Until now it’s been primarily used for diagnostics, in-vehicle-infotainment (IVI) systems, and connecting remote sensors. Connectivity and autonomy are two key drivers of the automotive industry. The breadth of components especially electronics is continuously increasing for connected cars and autonomous vehicles.
Delivering connected and autonomous driving features would require higher bandwidth. Some of the key features requiring high-speed data transfer are mentioned below:
Benefits of using Ethernet in vehicle
There are multiple proprietary standards for communication in a car, including analog signals on wires, CAN, FlexRay, MOST, and LVDS. Each vehicle component typically has dedicated wiring and communication requirements. Due to this complex cabling, the wiring harness is the 3rd highest cost component in a car (behind the engine and chassis). Harnesses are built one at a time and comprise 50% of the cost of labor for the entire car. The wiring harness is also the 3rd heaviest component (behind the chassis and engine). Any technology that reduces this weight directly contributes to fuel economy.
In comparison to MOST (media oriented systems transport) – a network that has been used primarily for infotainment and media systems that offers speed of 100-150 Mbps, Ethernet currently offers 100mbps which will be boosted in near future (gigabit per seconds).
Unlike MOST, it doesn’t:
- Require proprietary licensing,
- Have restricted access to hardware
- Have to rely on heavy coax cables
Average speed comparison of different solutions:
| LIN | CAN FD | FlexRay | MOST | Automotive Ethernet |
| 19.2 kbps | 15 Mbps | 10 Mbps | 25-100 Mbps | Multi Gbps |
- Automotive Ethernet is built for bandwidth, with switch networking it offers greater scalability
- It’s a lightweight and cost-effective solution that uses single unshielded twisted-pair (UTP) cabling
Evolution in Automotive
The IEEE802.3bp group is responsible for automotive Ethernet and is working on a much faster multi-gig standard for the future. Broadcom is responsible for introducing the current automotive standard – “BroadR-Reach” over unshielded twisted pair
Recently, automotive Ethernet has now got its industry-specific cable – “HDBaseT Automotive” which was primarily developed as consumer electronics and commercial connectivity standard for transmission of uncompressed HD audio, video, power, etc. It has
- Has a throughput of zero latency in ADAS
- Will enable the transmission rate of 6gbps
- Will have networking capability over 15m of a Single UTP
Challenges & Future Outlook
The automotive industry has a set of challenges for automotive Ethernet:
These automotive challenges drove specific requirements in Automotive Ethernet.
More to this, Cyber-security is another key area of challenge for automotive Ethernet and presents potential vulnerabilities for the vehicle.
For automotive Ethernet, the core threat would be protecting the bus from compromised electronic control units (ECU) as the physical switch network architecture and virtual segmentation utilization will stir up new issues. There are also issues of multiple types of attacks and scenarios, from unused ports, MAC spoofing, and bandwidth abuse, hijacking TCPs, VLAN hopping, etc.
Future
There is no limit to the data rates needed in the connected cars in the future. Few applications present today exceed 100 Mbps data transmission rate. These automotive applications have special requirements. To meet unique cost and manufacturing requirements of automotive applications, OPEN Alliance has developed new PHY technology – 100Base-T1 or 1TPCE (twisted-pair 100mbps)
It uses DFE and DCE techniques borrowed from 1000Base-1 gigabit Ethernet to support 100 Mbps Ethernet over single unshielded twisted cables.
More to this, industry-specific cables “HDBaseT Automotive” are also developed to have high speed and zero latency
It is estimated that 100% of the cars will be connected by 2025 and 35% of the vehicles on the road will be autonomous. Though Europe leads the technology adoption currently, it will soon be widely accepted across ASEAN countries primarily Japan and Korea.
We understand that every OEM is interested in automotive Ethernet for in-vehicle network for next-generation vehicles. With arise in challenges in connected or autonomous vehicles, and the increasing amount of data needs to be managed, automotive Ethernet becomes a viable option
Automotive wiring harnesses will change from heterogeneous networks of proprietary protocols (such as CAN and MOST) to hierarchical homogenous automotive Ethernet networks.
The recent advancement in Audio Video Bridging standards (AVB) and reduced twisted pair Ethernet is driving the reality of deploying Ethernet in automobiles. The industry is highly motivated by the significant benefits of expanded bandwidth, reduced labor cost, and vehicle weight. Ethernet is poised to replace the disparate communication means or to tie them together in a single backbone
However, the convergence of automotive interfaces into Ethernet backbone has created unique test challenges – how do you ensure that all of these systems are working correctly, interrelating, and working seamlessly to guarantee a safe and high-quality automotive experience? Manufacturers need optimized bandwidth, reduce latency, verify clock and phase synchronization, and validate network security.
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