BLE+UWB+NFC+Star Flash, which technology will become the mainstream of digital keys?

火辣西米秀

BLE+UWB+NFC+Star Flash, which technology will become the mainstream of digital keys? [Copy link]

What is a Digital Key?

As the "New Four Modernizations" sweep the automotive industry, driven by the intelligentization and networking of passenger cars, car keys are rapidly entering the digital era, bringing great flexibility and convenience. The digital car key system consists of a digital lock cylinder and a digital car key on the vehicle side. Through NFC, Bluetooth, UWB and other technologies, it realizes "keyless" entry, start, lock and other functions, and supports remote vehicle control.

The digital key for cars has gone through three generations of development. UWB has become the key technology for the third generation of digital keys due to its security and centimeter-level positioning accuracy. Currently, only a small number of models are equipped with it. The UWB digital key solution usually combines UWB, BLE and NFC technologies. Bluetooth is used for identity authentication and rough positioning first, and then the UWB anchor point is used for real-time ranging and positioning after approaching the vehicle (within a dozen meters). Taking advantage of the high-precision positioning characteristics of UWB technology, UWB base stations are installed in places with poor signals such as underground garages. The blind spots of vehicle-side sensors can be filled by reusing the vehicle-side UWB anchor points to accurately locate AVP scenarios.

CCC Alliance digital key standard iteration, source: Car Connectivity Consortium

UWB is a wireless communication technology that uses a wide frequency band above 1GHz. It transmits data through non-sinusoidal narrow pulses from nanoseconds to picoseconds, and the data transmission rate can reach hundreds of megabits per second. UWB technology has the advantages of high positioning accuracy, strong anti-interference ability, good security, fast transmission speed, and low power consumption, but it has not been widely used in the field of short-distance wireless transmission and wearable devices in the early days. UWB technology has strong coexistence, and the vehicle-side frequency band range is 6-8GHz, and the probability of interference and conflict with other wireless technologies is low. In automotive applications, compared with NFC and Bluetooth, UWB has obvious advantages in security and positioning accuracy, achieving centimeter-level positioning, and the ranging sequence supports 8,000 security bits, greatly improving the security of digital keys.

UWB technology was proposed in 1960 and was first used in the military field. In 2013, it was gradually applied to public security, warehousing, logistics, hospitals, factories, coal mines and other fields. In 2019, Apple equipped the iPhone 11 series with UWB technology, and it began to be used in more devices. In July 2021, the CCC Alliance released the third-generation digital key core technology specifications supporting UWB technology. In 2022, BMW, NIO and other car companies were the first to be equipped with UWB digital keys, followed by Volkswagen, BYD and other car companies also launched models equipped with UWB digital keys.

秦天qintian0303

It is still a chaotic situation. Every manufacturer has its main product. It would be bad if one manufacturer dominated the market.