Connectivity to drive development of highly autonomous systems

Xpeng Motors will begin deliveries of its P7 vehicles to customers in Q2 of 2020, making it the first Chinese company to use Connext DDS in the production models of autonomous vehicles.

Over the past few months, Xpeng Motors unveiled a series of high-end technology and design features of the P7, making it the first production vehicle to implement financial industry standards-compliant authentication digital car key technology, and first to carry Alibaba’s In-Car Mini APP platform. Xpeng Motors also announced in November that it has signed an agreement with Alipay to jointly develop in-car payment functions, which will first be implemented in the P7 vehicle. The Chinese smart EV maker also announced in November the signing of $400 million in Series C funding to accelerate its business growth.

Built on the Smart Electric Platform Architecture (SEPA), the P7 will employ the XPILOT 3.0 autonomous driving system. This is powered by Connext DDS and enables the progressive implementation of Level 3 autonomous driving. RTI is enabling Xpeng’s vision of producing intelligent and autonomous vehicles for the middle-range market in China, the largest segment of the world’s biggest electric vehicle market.

Xpeng Motors uses Connext DDS in its highly complex P7 autonomous system to efficiently and effectively send and receive data in real time. RTI Connext DDS mitigates risk and delivers low-latency, high-reliability, scalability and security essential for distributed systems. Connext DDS is the only framework that is deployed in hundreds of autonomous industrial applications and is capable of supporting autonomous vehicle development from research to production. The plug-and-play architecture, advanced DDS Security, and support from ECU to backend allows Connext DDS users to develop and reuse software across the entire network stack while future-proofing their IP from market and technology changes.

In the development of the P7, Xpeng Motors relied on new features in RTI’s Recording Service, the first off-the-shelf solution for reliable and non-intrusive recording, analysis and replay of real-time data, messages and events at high data rates and high fidelity. With the Recording Service, users now have the ability to temporarily store the recording log in RAM and flush it to storage as needed, allowing longer use of SSDs while in the field. This offers an easier and more efficient fix for system debugging.

“As a frontrunner in the smart electric vehicle sector, Xpeng Motors is proud to have worked with industry leader RTI to build fully connected, highly robust and reliable autonomous vehicles for mass production models. The partnership is an endorsement of Xpeng’s strength as a leading player in the smart EV space,” said Xinzhou Wu, Vice President of Autonomous Driving R&D at Xpeng Motors. “The Xpeng P7 represents a new generation of autonomous vehicles and we are excited to offer our customers the most advanced features backed by top-line industry technologies,” Mr. Wu said.

Bob Leigh, Senior Market Development Director, Autonomous Systems at RTI, added: “The global autonomous vehicle market is growing rapidly. Xpeng Motors is a truly innovative company in the Chinese market and RTI is proud to work with them to accelerate their vision for next-generation autonomous vehicles.

“Xpeng Motors has a unique vision and has been crucial in helping RTI evolve and add unique capabilities to our technology. Together, RTI and Xpeng Motors are jumpstarting the development of new DDS-based automotive architectures, and transforming the software design and development process to bring these vehicles to market much sooner.”

RTI and Xpeng Motors will be showcasing their autonomous vehicle solutions at CES 2020 in RTI’s booth #713 in the Westgate Convention Center.