Complete connectivity solution for autonomous vehicle development

It bridges both research and production technologies, thus supporting development from prototype to end use.

Connext Drive builds on RTI’s proven technology already used in over 200 autonomous vehicle programs around the world, as well as over 1,000 other demanding, real-time, intelligent distributed systems.

RTI Connext Drive includes a native Software Development Kit (SDK) for developing and integrating vehicle applications. Because it is built on the open Data Distribution Service (DDS) standard, it implements data-centric connectivity that offers a virtual distributed shared memory. This lets advanced algorithms get all the data they need while reducing in-vehicle wiring.

The DDS standard is specified by all the important automotive ecosystems, including ROS2, AUTOSAR, and several commercial designs. This lets Connext Drive be the first – and only – platform that can integrate DDS, ROS2, AUTOSAR Classic, and AUTOSAR Adaptive, letting OEMs work with the standard (or standards) that best meets their needs at different points in the innovation cycle. Connext Drive is the only proven, standards-based solution specifically built for current and future development of intelligent, autonomous vehicles.

Connext Drive offers security, evolution management, redundancy, safety and system development tools. These address many challenges, including: 

• Vehicles increasingly demand security. Connext Drive is the only design that directly enforces data integrity through the underlying protocol. It authenticates participants to ensure that applications talk only to trusted remote applications. It encrypts flows to protect the privacy of data. Connext Drive offers flexibility, allowing designers to optimise performance and security by choosing which parts of the system, and even which individual dataflows, must be protected.
• Distributed systems evolve, and as they do often need to incorporate many components that change over time. As they change, component interfaces and data structures evolve and differ. Connext Drive can match these slightly-different data structures. This allows systems to add new capabilities over time. Thus, autonomous vehicle systems in development will maintain relevancy as the market advances over the next decade.
• Vehicles must operate non-stop. Even a short ‘downtime’ threatens safety and reliability. To address this, Connext Drive supports full redundancy. Any sensor, data source, algorithm, compute platform, or even network can be easily duplicated to provide higher reliability. The data-centric design allows the system to resolve this redundancy naturally.
• Future updates to Connext Drive will include reference architectures and data models, development and integration guides and optional ISO 26262 ASIL D safety-certified libraries. These will reduce the risk of deploying autonomous vehicles in safety-critical applications.
• Finally, autonomous systems are challenging to develop. Connext Drive offers tools and services, including the ability to collect data to control the vehicle remotely, record data for debugging and simulation, build larger systems including V2X and easily troubleshoot technical issues.

Connext Drive offers automakers the software they need to operate in diverse real-time environments, interoperate with other systems within the vehicle, connect to off-vehicle systems, evolve systems over time, develop reliable and high-performance systems and build in top security.

For a live demonstration, RTI will be exhibiting at CES 2020 in Las Vegas, Nev. at booth #713 in the Westgate Convention Center.