Wireless connectivity solutions are disruptive in the automotive environment. Technologies such as Wi-Fi, LTE, and Bluetooth® are enabling a range of new features pertaining to infotainment, safety cameras and sensors, and diagnostic. It isn’t all plain sailing, though, with challenging radio and physical environments, and stringent reliability, robustness, and serviceable lifetime requirements.

Application needs in the automotive segment are extremely diverse, ranging from the low-power, low-data-rate scenarios of tyre pressure monitoring and remote keyless entry systems, through to the significant throughput and quality of service (QoS) requirements of media streaming for in-car entertainment. Wireless technologies are also enabling exciting new vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication scenarios – something that is being given further impetus by the rapid development of fully- and semi-autonomous vehicles.

Safety and security are critical to those automotive use cases where failure or malicious exploit could lead to injury or loss of life. As such, automotive connectivity solutions must be designed and validated to relevant quality, safety, and security standards. Furthermore, hardware and software should be architected such that critical functions operate independently of non-critical systems such as in-car media delivery. While standards-based technologies are preferred in the automotive ecosystem, the application requirements demand domain-specific knowledge and customisation for the intended usage scenarios.