by Rainer Makowitz

After the malware attacks on mobile devices running the Android operating system, speculations about automotive viruses have soared again. Compared to IT and telecom, the plague of car viruses has not (yet) arrived in the automotive industry. Open networks appeared in IT in 1985, and appeared in telecom 15 years later. It wasn’t until 2005 that open networks made it to automotive. IT-based attacks started to make headlines as early as 1990, and telecom followed 15 years later. Last year was the “year” of media coverage about attacks on cars. Apply this simple time pattern to malware: The virus phenomenon was widely seen in IT starting in 1995, and today we see it the telecom and mobile platform industries. Automotive is still unperturbed. For now.

But it is high time to look at the car as a connected IT system. The software is just beginning to be standardized and countermeasures are starting to be put in place to prevent major threats in the near future.

Here are the main reasons why your car is still very hard to hack if you apply a few common sense rules:

#1 Physical access is required to reach “open interfaces” like the OBD II connector or USB plugs.
Keep your car locked when you leave it.

#2  Most malware routes into the car are indirect in nature via attacks on service equipment and infested consumer devices.
Make sure you have malware defense established on your smartphone.

#3 Wireless access points are still rare and should be well defended.
Security breaches reported recently were due to significant violations of good software design practices in the custom code, e.g. telematics units, so hold off on subscribing to telematics services for now.

At the automotive security panel discussion at the Freescale Technology Forum this year, there was wide agreement that the car industry has to go back to the basics of security which means know your friends, know who you are communicating with, and follow common sense security practices.

Interested? Read the complete entryhttp://blogs.freescale.com/2011/07/21/automotive-radar-at-new-resolution-levels/

by Cherif Assad

I saw an exciting demonstration last week of an off-the-shelf electric car concept by Switzerland-based Michelin Research & Technic (MRT) at the Freescale Technology Forum (FTF) in San Antonio, Texas. Called the Michelin Active Wheel System, it’s a “dressed” wheel inside the car fender that rotates depending on the road profile.

Analyst Rob Endrle shares his enthusiasm for Michelin’s wheel in action in a recent article. Here, I’ll get into some of the specifics around the technology that’s inside this crowd pleaser.

The wheel is equipped with motors for traction and suspension. The traction motor delivers 30kW of continuous power, although the second motor provides the suspension needed to lift up on bumps and stabilize the car depending on the road topology. Michelin MRT developed the motors, as well as designed the electronics and the battery pack that’s capable of handling several capacities ranging from 15KWh to 38KWh.

Now, about the electronics:  There is a set of two modules: one module is dedicated to manage the two front wheel motors of the car and the second module handles the active suspension on each side. The system can be extended to the rear for a four-wheel drive. One visitor from Asia made a comment that it fits pretty well with small electric cars.

The modules are powered by Freescale Qorivva MPC5643L microcontroller, a dual-core microcontroller with failsafe mechanisms dedicated for electric motor drive capability (PWM, analog-to-digital channels that are coordinated by a cross triggering unit). The MPC5643L operates either in lock step mode (LSM) or dual parallel mode (DPM)  should you need additional performance by a factor up to x 1.8. A power management device, Freescale’s MC33905 system basis chip (SBC), acts as the companion chip for intelligent power management and functional safety compliancy purposes.

Interested? Read the complete entry

by Mike Garrard

Without doubt, electric vehicles have sex appeal. Not in the same way that a five litre 480hp V8 Mustang at full throttle does. The benefit is more cerebral.  They are the future, quiet and clean. Driving one comes with a feel good factor of saving the planet. I have one, and I love it, see here. It might even breed a certain little sanctimonious corner of the grey matter that makes one park it on the drive rather than put it in the garage.

Do we need them? Most certainly.  I don’t believe it is possible for the planet’s resources to support all of China and India at the consumption rates in the West, an astounding 200kWh per head, every day. If China were like the USA they would be buying 60M cars per year: that’s the entire world car production in 2009. Something has to change.

Even the most optimistic people, which I rashly assume is the US Geological Society, say peak oil will be somewhere around 2030; IEA thinks we’ve flatlined and others say that we’ve peaked already. For mass consumption, oil shale may not be the significant low cost oil replacement we want it to be.  Your children, or theirs, may be the last petrol heads on the planet.

Interested? Read the complete entry

by Cherif Assad

The debate for performance has always been a passionate one in the engineering community. In the semiconductor industry, nearly every competitor claims to have the most innovate architecture that offers the highest performance.

Let’s make an attempt to sort out the requirements of a relative performance evaluation. The intrinsic core performance and workload behavior are important, but not enough. The interaction with the peripheral set –analog to digital, digital to analog conversion, multiplexing, bus switch to memory access – is the litmus test to determine the real value behind a piece of silicon. The compiler is provided by a software tools vendor, which may help to optimize the source code execution to come to the result expected. Now remains the essential element about the methodology for an objective assessment.

You can select a software benchmark given for generic tests, and you can also use algorithms dedicated for special functions or to measure signal processing capability. In automotive, specifically powertrain, there are several key parameters calling for high performance microcontrollers (MCUs) to determine real time position: the engine’s cog, angle-to-time conversion, road speed calculation, and lookup tables.

Interested? Read the complete entry

by Marc Osajda

Powered two wheelers account for only one percent of European traffic, but represent 16 percent of the road fatalities, according to a study led by the European Association of Motorcycle Manufacturers. The risk of being killed in motorcycle accident is 20 times higher than in a regular passenger car. More than half of the death causes are due to upper body area injuries in the thorax, abdomen and spine.

Scary data, isn’t it?

Bering, a well-known manufacturer of motorcycle clothes is now launching an innovative motorcycle airbag jacket intended to reduce bikers’ injuries and fatalities, the Bering Wireless Airbag Safety System.

The system is innovative for several reasons. It uses proven automotive crash sensors to detect real impact with other road users, dedicated sensors to detect if the motorcycle is sliding (cornering on a slippery road, for example) and the command to inflate the airbag jacket is transmitted wirelessly in less than 0.05 seconds. The full protection is achieved in less than 0.08 seconds. The reason why I’m proud of this safety equipment is because the solution is designed around Freescale Xtrinsic MEMS sensors and Freescale microcontrollers – proven automotive technology used in millions of passenger car airbag systems around the world.

Interested? Read the complete entry