German technology company Continental has come out with Smart Cockpit HPC, a high-performance computer (HPC) that offers ideally adapted system performance for a pre-integrated set of functions in vehicles.
The company says the solution is targeted at a balance between user experience, system performance, costs, and short development time. With this development, Continental says it has demonstrated its proven expertise in domain-specific and cross-domain HPCs and positions itself as one of the leading technology companies in the software-defined vehicle market trend and in the management of complex HPC projects.
Jean-Francois Tarabbia, head of the Architecture and Networking business area at Continental said, “Continental provides the automotive market with a comprehensive range of HPC solutions. With the Smart Cockpit HPC, we now offer our customers the opportunity to bring an increasingly automated and exciting mobility experience to the road in a cost-optimised way and with short development times.”
The Smart Cockpit HPC comes with an ideally adapted system performance for a pre-integrated function set. It offers fast response times as well as a smooth user interface even for cross-domain functions. This enables vehicle manufacturers to minimise costs and time expenditure in the development phase together. Pre-integrated, state-of-the-art cluster and infotainment functions can reduce hardware costs in the cockpit area. The company claims that incorporating Smart Cockpit HPC OEMs can enable a fast time to market – from order to start of production in 18 months.
The HPC enables the integration of various domains and functions, such as cluster, infotainment – with an interface to an Android Operating System – (display, radio, phone, phone-mirroring, and navigation) and Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS). By combining all cluster and infotainment functions in one box, the Smart Cockpit HPC reduces the number of previously installed control units and extensive wiring harnesses. This significantly reduces the complexity of the vehicle architecture.
The system is designed for the typical configuration of two displays for the centre stack and the instrument cluster but can be expanded to include up to 3 displays, e.g. a head-up display. Even though the Smart Cockpit HPC is a preconfigured solution, customer-specific adaptations can still be made regarding human-machine and hardware interfaces.
