The Future's Not Far Away - Visteon develops automotive electronic accessories - Polling Data - Statistical Data Included

Automotive Manufacturing & Production, April, 2001 by Gary S. Vasilash

Although Visteon's Jim Wynalek has a vision of the connected vehicle, he's not looking far beyond the parking lot. It is not a matter of if or when. It is a question of both how and how much? Here's what he's seeing.

The world that Jim Wynalek describes is one that's slightly ahead of the one that many of us inhabit. For example, he refers to a "multimedia head." In response to visible puzzlement, he says with a smile, "it used to be called a 'radio.'" Of course, the multimedia head unit does a whole lot more than simply provide tunes or talk (although it does that, too: but chances are good that in Wynalek's world, the source of the audio is actually a stellite, not a terrestrial tower--or it could be an MP3 file). Navigation. Internet access. E-mail. E-commerce. The vehicle that Wynalek, vice president & general manager, Telematics/Multimedia Visteon Corp.'s Comfort, Communication and Safety Segment, and his team--along with partner companies including Microsoft, Intel, Lucent, Nintendo, and others--are developing may look like a conventional vehicle, but it will have tremendous functionality.

Consider this possible scenario: "If we detected a vehicle that required a real time recalibration of a key engine operating parameter"--say there was an emissions problem discovered with the type of engine found in that vehicle--" we could wirelessly download the new code. We could do a 'seamless recall.' We don't have to have the car in our hands in all cases. We have the ability." (imagine not having to spend time in some small waiting room--free coffee and donuts notwithstanding.) Visteon has learned a lot about real-world applications that include such data exchange through its participation in Formula One and Champ car racing. He continues: "We can track a vehicle from a wireless signal and its GPS location. There may be an operator that wants to know where their assets are at all times. We can do that." Think of logistics companies that are serving just-in-time customer needs. As for a vehicle that can do either of these things: they haven't engineered one--yet. They're working on it.

As for what this car will be built like. Wynalek observes, "We're not making radical changes to the physical architecture of the car. I think the electronic architecture of the car may change wit time, such that we have the appropriate multiplexing and data buses so we can move more information around in the car and spin more of that off to some infrastructure."

Architectural issues.

That "infrastructure" leads to a question of architectural issues of another sort: what will the "connected" aspects of this connected vehicle be? Wynalek acknowledges, "The format isn't clear yet." That is, say you have a cell phone or a communications-enabled personal digital assistant (e.g., a Palm). Chances are, you might not want to have redundant capability built-in to your vehicle. Instead, there could be a Bluetooth node in the vehicle that communicates with your device once you bring it into the vehicle.

Then you would be able to save some money, not have to pay twice for similar functionality. However, Wynalek notes, "If the wireless link is portable and has to be electronically or physically docked in the vehicle and you get into a crash, wouldn't you feel bad if you left your cell phone on your desk and never got the help to save your life?" Well, maybe you wouldn't feel badly because you'd no longer feel--but if you did survive despite leaving your equipment behind, chances are that phone or PDA wouldn't be long for this world once you got back to your desk. Wynalek suggests that there will probably be a balance between portability and taking advantage of the vehicle platform.

Another architectural consideration is one that specifically relates to how much capability should be built-in to the vehicle and how much should be accessed via a network. For example, consider mapping. On the one hand, it might seem as though a DVD disk could contain a sufficient amount of data for, say, Europe. And there is an array of memory forms and formats being developed (e.g., the Sony Memory Stick). That on-board approach would be quite reliable. There is another school of thought that has it that a better approach would be to have navigation information accessed in real time. Visteon has developed a "NavRadio" system for Europe that takes advantage of the German traffic messaging radio channel so that getting there means being routed around traffic tie-ups that have suddenly occurred, or construction projects that didn't make it onto a disk. (He points out that in North America this sort of thing may occur on a private basis.) Or some architectures have it so that the whole thing is downloaded to t he vehicle via the Internet in real-time. Visteon is some what neutral about these approaches in that Wynalek says they are willing to supply the required form and function.

Whatever shakes out will probably be a combination of things. Regardless, Wynalek is convinced that voice-technology will have a big role to play in the driver-system interface (something that Visteon has commercialized and which is currently available in the jaguar S-Type). After all, the driver's eyes should be on the road and hands upon the wheel. Speaking in that context and referring to some capabilities being on board and others as part of the network, he comments, "If I need to make a voice command to dial the phone or change my climate control, I'm not going to make a wireless hookup to a server to give back a command to my climate control. Some functionality will be embedded, some will be off-line."