Empowering Skills for the Software-Defined Vehicle Revolution

2024-12-16 | By Travis Foss

At a recent Open Garage event by digital.auto, Bosch’s Mix team presented a demonstration of a future automotive E/E architecture.

Central Compute with Zones | MiX x digital.auto - YouTube

The setup they presented uses a central computer, which in the video highlights a Bosch Vehicle integration platform board, and since the video was released has been updated to a Raspberry PI 5. The central computer runs a real time Yocto Linux with PREEMPT_RT. This central computer is then connected to a few zones, in this case Arduino Portenta H7 boards, that control smart actuators. The connection from the central computer is networked via Ethernet connections from the Central computer to a switch and then out to each of the three zones. Each of the zones is connected to a Smart actuator via CAN and controls a position control motor. In the video it shows how both Zone Control Units are linked through the central computer and provide force feedback to the other unit. They also show how the control units are also connected to a vehicle steering motor. All these connections have a millisecond response time creating a Real Time experience for those evaluating the unit.