From R&D to technology, NVIDIA is entering the automotive industry

1. Design stage auxiliary system     

    If you have ever built a computer yourself, or you are a computer game enthusiast, you must be familiar with the NVIDIA brand. In our impression, it is a visual computing company. In fact, NVIDIA is also conducting scientific research projects such as gene sequencing, protein folding testing, and smart cities. Now, NVIDIA wants to do more. With the development of mobile computing, its business will involve more areas related to the automotive industry, including vehicle research and development and the expansion of in-vehicle interconnection technology. With its excellent product research and development capabilities, it is bound to become a "powerful disruptor" in the field of vehicle research and development that breaks the existing order.

    Currently, NVIDIA is involved in the automotive field from five aspects, including auxiliary system development in the automotive design stage, in-vehicle entertainment and navigation systems, digital instrument development systems, advanced driver assistance systems, and rear-seat entertainment systems.

■ Assistance systems in the design phase

    We all know that the IT field updates products very quickly, while the vehicle development and design cycle is relatively long. So the latest products in the vehicle development and design stage are likely to lag behind the times when they are actually mass-produced. How to avoid the problems caused by this product development cycle? The Jetson development platform is the solution provided by NVIDIA. It can be applied to the entire range from in-vehicle infotainment to advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) development.

    At present, cars use different types of sensors such as radar, camera, infrared, etc. Due to different principles, they can collect different information respectively. Each generation of processors focuses on processing richer information and converting this information into useful information for drivers. Jetson is like a development module. It can connect to all common sensors currently used in vehicles, and use this as a basis to test the performance of new processing hardware. After the test is successful, this development module can be quickly transformed into a product. During development, this platform will be backward compatible with all vehicle sensor interfaces. If the processing module has higher requirements during mass production of the vehicle, it can be immediately replaced with a new processing system that supports all existing sensors in the development stage. This avoids the embarrassing situation that the latest products cannot be used due to the rapid update of IT products and the long vehicle development and design cycle. The automotive field is only one of the fields involved in the Jetson platform. In the future, it will become a diversified processing center.

■ Using ray tracing technology to present realistic images

    As you can see in the picture below, using ray tracing, developers have efficiently completed the rendering of a car model. Compared with the role of 3D printing technology in the product development process, the use of such technology can not only quickly present the developer's ideas, but also display the effect more directly, so that the product development cycle can be greatly shortened.

■ Digital instrument development system

    This is related to the full LCD instrument that we have mentioned frequently before. Its appearance makes the vehicle instrument more personalized and no longer limited by the dashboard shape as before. NVIDIA provides a styling development system for the full LCD instrument.

    Among the cooperating brands mentioned at the beginning of the article, Tesla's name must have impressed you. In addition to processing multimedia information, the large screen on its center console can also control the vehicle's air-conditioning system. The visual effect of the system is also in line with Tesla's brand positioning. It uses a series of solutions provided by NVIDIA.

    The solution provided by NVIDIA is not just screen display, but also includes analyzing the information collected by sensors and converting it into content that the driver can understand. Therefore, models like the seventh-generation Golf in the picture below that do not use large-size screens on the dashboard and center console also use a complete set of solutions provided by NVIDIA.

2. Processors that can analyze sensor information more accurately

■ Advanced Driver Assistance Systems

    How to make vehicles safer is what all car companies and suppliers strive to do. NVIDIA has made its own efforts in this regard. It has developed a driver assistance system using its rich experience in graphics computing and processing. Common functions such as traffic sign recognition, blind spot detection, lane departure warning, driver warning monitoring, assisted parking and night vision can all be completed.

    Perhaps you may have some doubts after reading this. How are these technologies launched by NVIDIA different from the products provided by the well-known "big players" in the field of vehicle safety, such as Bosch and Continental? Simply put, these systems launched by NVIDIA are just analyses based on the information collected. They will process all the collected information into content that the driver can understand. NVIDIA will not discuss how to process this information for the time being.

■ In-car entertainment and navigation system

    Navigation systems have undergone many technological innovations and are currently in the process of transitioning from 2D to 3D display, which is not only an improvement in graphic display, but also an improvement in information processing capabilities. In addition to filtering and processing useful information from the vast amount of information, the speed must be faster, which is undoubtedly a great test for hardware performance.

    NVIDIA Tegra processors provide visual processing for the latest and most advanced mobile phones, tablets, and portable gaming devices on the market, and the latest Tegra K1 takes the technology to a whole new level. It integrates four CPU cores, a power-saving core, and a 192-core high-performance NVIDIA Kepler-class GPU. It also includes a video processor, image processor, and audio processor, all of which are included in a small, energy-efficient package.

    In addition to a more gorgeous display, the processor can also process audio signals. This allows the driver to achieve clearer voice input and improve the dynamic recognition of natural speech. In this way, the accuracy of voice commands can be improved and the driver's attention can be reduced. In the near future, the conversation between you and the vehicle can be as simple as communicating with the customer service center, and the era of "chicken-duck talk" in human-computer interaction will be gone forever.

■ Rear entertainment system

    Compared to the above mentioned projects, the rear entertainment system seems to be the easiest to understand. However, it is not as simple as adding two screens on the back of the front seats. Browsing the web, watching high-definition videos, and experiencing content comparable to game consoles and even optimizing the control experience are all issues that NVIDIA is solving. However, compared to the above content, these rear entertainment system issues seem to be a piece of cake for NVIDIA.

Summary of the full text:

    NVIDIA, which has rich experience in electronic product development, has begun to get involved in the automotive industry. Shortening the development cycle, improving the development speed, and controlling product stability are all experiences NVIDIA has gained from developing electronic products before. These experiences will inevitably be applied to the field of vehicle manufacturing. In addition, its electronic product development capabilities in some areas far exceed the development capabilities of current car companies, and even many of the suppliers we know cannot compete with it. NVIDIA's role in the automotive design and manufacturing industry is to be a strong disruptor, and the human-computer interaction experience, interface usability, and customer experience of the vehicle will all change.