Infineon Technologies and TTTech Auto collaborate on safe operating architecture for highly automated driving

According to foreign media reports, TTTech Auto, a developer of autonomous driving software and hardware platforms, has cooperated with Infineon Technologies to develop key components for L3 and L4 highly automated driving safety operation electronic architecture. This component is aimed at automobile and technology manufacturers and enables the safe processing of radar or lidar camera sensor data. The concept of safe operation architecture and its key components ensure that highway autonomous driving functions, valet parking and autonomous driving trucks can still operate safely when individual functions fail.

(Image source: TTTech Auto)

The joint research contributes to the successful completion of the European PRYSTINE (Programmable Systems for Automotive Intelligence) project. PRYSTINE aims to enable safe autonomous driving by leveraging safe operational urban surround perception. For three years, around 60 partners have collaborated in the fields of sensor fusion, electronic architecture and AI under the coordination of Infineon.

The mixed-critical approach allows the use of computer hardware and software to run applications of different automotive safety integrity levels (ASIL). A specially developed failover mechanism consisting of a main EUC ("Doer" node) and a backup ECU ("Fallback" node) ensures the necessary safe operation of the vehicle. If the "Doer" fails, the "Fallback" quickly takes over within milliseconds. This mechanism ensures the safe operation of the system, such as sensor fusion, trajectory planning and object recognition tasks for L3 and L4 functions.

The modular concept offers high flexibility and accelerates the development of autonomous driving systems by combining various off-the-shelf elements such as SOC (System on Chip), automotive microcontrollers, power supplies, deterministic backbone networks and multiple cameras. This safe electronic architecture can take highly automated driving to the next level, and Infineon and TTTech Auto will continue to work together to achieve L4 and L5 autonomous driving.

“The Safe OS Design enables automakers to cost-effectively increase the safety of their highly automated vehicles to aviation standards,” said Stefan Poledna, CTO of TTTech Auto. “The system architecture takes into account the high safety and reliability requirements of global automakers’ series production programs and, based on a centralized computer architecture, lays the foundation for the software car of the future.”

“We are developing multi-core microprocessors to provide high-performance, safe and economical solutions for highly automated vehicles,” said Thomas Boehm, Senior Vice President of Automotive Microcontrollers at Infineon Technologies. “Multi-core processors provide the necessary processing power and sufficient memory and meet the increasing safety requirements due to the electrification of vehicles and the development of autonomous driving.”