Real-Time Innovations (RTI), the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) connectivity company, unveiled Connext Drive – a complete solution that provides automotive manufacturers with the software and tools they need to build highly autonomous vehicles and fleets. Now, autonomous vehicle makers can innovate and build vehicles without the high risk and cost of in house solutions, nor the difficulty of adapting legacy connectivity. It bridges both research and production technologies, thus supporting development from prototype to end use. Connext Drive builds on proven technology already used in over 200 autonomous vehicle programs around the world, as well as over 1,000 other demanding, real-time, intelligent distributed systems.
Autonomous vehicle connectivity software is challenging and risky. Since they are built from many subsystems, vehicles require full interoperability between components. To provide consistently optimal performance, data must flow correctly, reliably and with extremely low latency. In-house connectivity solutions take extensive time to develop and require technical expertise; developers find these complex and expensive. Worse, autonomous vehicle designs must last for years, so automakers must ensure that their systems not only address today’s connectivity challenges, but also anticipate future challenges. They must also track constantly evolving technology and security requirements. Together, these challenges make connectivity a key cost, challenge and risk point. Developers need a reliable, proven solution.
Introducing Connext Drive
RTI Connext Drive brings developers the software and tools they need to build autonomous vehicles and automotive fleets. It includes a native Software Development Kit (SDK) for developing and integrating vehicle applications. It supports software from the research phase all the way through to production. Because it is built on the open Data Distribution Service™ (DDS) standard, it implements “data-centric” connectivity that offers a virtual “distributed shared memory”. This lets advanced algorithms get all the data they need while reducing in-vehicle wiring.
The DDS standard is specified by all the important automotive ecosystems, including ROS2, AUTOSAR, and several commercial designs. This lets Connext Drive be the first – and only – platform that can integrate DDS, ROS2, AUTOSAR Classic, and AUTOSAR Adaptive, letting OEMs work with the standard (or standards) that best meets their needs at different points in the innovation cycle. Connext Drive is the only proven, standards-based solution specifically built for current and future development of intelligent, autonomous vehicles.
