Open access platform accelerates software-defined vehicle development

Renesas Electronics Corporation has launched R-Car Open Access (RoX), a development platform for software-defined vehicles (SDVs) that combines all essential hardware, OS, software, and tools required for automotive developers to rapidly develop next-generation vehicles with secure and continuous software updates. Designed for the Renesas R-Car family of SoCs and MCUs, the SDV platform includes comprehensive tools for seamlessly deploying AI applications. By pre-integrating all fundamental layers required to develop SDVs, RoX drastically reduces the complexities for car OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers, saving time and money.

The advent of SDVs is a major step in automotive technology, accelerating toward more autonomous driving, electrification, and connected experiences. Cars must be aware of the 360° surrounding space with ASIL D levels of sensing, processing and control to deliver safety and autonomy applications. The in-cabin experiences for drivers and passengers are being revolutionised. As a result, modern electrical/electronics (E/E) architecture depends on software to control vehicle functions, manage real-time data networks across different ECU zones, and provide customer differentiation. It has become more difficult to maintain and upgrade these complex software stacks while ensuring the highest levels of safety. The company's customisable solution solves these challenges by delivering a cloud-native development environment and a simulation platform, supporting the software-first approach and parallel hardware and software development.

The flexible RoX SDV platform is offered in two versions. 'RoX Whitebox' is an open, easily accessible software package with royalty-free OS and hypervisor software such as Android Automotive OS, FreeRTOS, Linux, Xen and Zephyr RTOS, and reference applications designed for specific domain systems. 'RoX Licensed' is based on industry-proven commercial software solutions, such as QNX and Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System, as well as AUTOSAR-compliant software and SAFERTOS. It is pre-integrated and tested to run on the company's R-Car SoCs and MCUs and includes pre-validated software stacks from STRADVISION for ADAS and Candera CGI Studio for in-vehicle infotainment, to name a few. These software solutions can be easily productised, customised, or expanded depending on OEMs' needs.

With the platform, automotive system engineers can start building their software immediately using a highly integrated toolchain even before the hardware is available. This is possible through the cloud environment and the virtual development platform, which lets developers design, debug in simulation, and verify their software before deploying on live SoCs and MCUs. The virtual development platform includes the Renesas Fast Simulator (RFS) and partner solutions such as ASTC VLAB VDM and Synopsys Virtualizer Development Kit (VDK) to provide broad coverage of simulation speed, features and use cases.

For seamless end-to-end AI development, RoX offers the AI Workbench to enable developers to validate and optimise their models and test their AI applications in the cloud, either on the virtual development platform or the company's board farms. A wide range of AI models, automated pipelines, and a specific hybrid compiler toolchain (HyCo) are available to support the rapid AI deployment on the R-Car heterogeneous compute platform across generations of SoCs.

The RoX SDV platform now supports AWS cloud computing services as part of the AI Workbench development environment. With the Renesas R-Car SDK containerised in the AWS cloud environment, developers can innovate and optimise their designs more efficiently. This tight integration allows them to instantly simulate and test hardware and software combinations and deploy AI applications that run seamlessly on R-Car devices.

The platform is designed for current generation R-Car SoCs, the upcoming R-Car Gen 5 MCU/SoC Family, and future devices. The SDV platform provides car OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers with the flexibility to design a broad range of scalable compute solutions for ADAS, IVI, gateway, cross-domain fusion systems, and body control, domain, and zone control systems.

The R-Car Gen 5 is currently the only hardware architecture in the industry that can accommodate the full range of processing requirements – from zonal ECUs to high-end central compute, serving from entry-level vehicles to luxury-class models. Thanks to a new unified hardware architecture based on Arm CPU cores, customers developing with the R-Car Gen 5 devices will be able to reuse the same software and tools across diverse E/E applications that span car models and generations, preserving their engineering investments. The company's high-performance SoC products will offer domain-specific and cross-domain solutions using application processing, large display capabilities, sensor connectivity, GPU and AI processing.

"RoX is a significant advancement that will speed up the shift-left approach for software-defined vehicles," said Vivek Bhan, senior vice president and general manager of High Performance Computing at Renesas. "Today, car OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers are heavily investing in software development and maintenance. Renesas understands this challenge and is closely working with them to deliver a flexible, ready-to-deploy development solution that can be maintained throughout the vehicle's lifespan. The RoX platform empowers our customers to design vehicles that deliver new value and bring improved safety and delightful comfort experiences to drivers and passengers."

"At AWS, we're committed to helping our customers and partners accelerate development and bring innovation to drivers faster than ever before," said Andrea Ketzer, director of Technology Strategy, Automotive & Manufacturing at AWS. "With Renesas' R-Car Gen 5 devices supported by the AI Workbench on AWS, customers will achieve faster and more validated simulations and the ability to develop independently of hardware. This step change in development will drive the industry forward and place software innovation at the forefront of mobility."