Connector giant Anbofu aims to build a "brain" and "nerve" for automobiles

Unfortunately, until today, input methods have not been able to smoothly type out the three words "Anbofu" like Lenovo Delphi. Not long ago, Dongchehui had a conversation with three CEOs of Anbofu Asia Pacific region about the courage and motivation behind a time-honored brand renaming and splitting.

The transformation of "Da Dong Jin Gu" was originally only for one thing

In Anbofu's view, security, green, and connectivity are the requirements of the market, customers, and the future for this industry. As a new company after the split, Anbofu is committed to developing safer, more environmentally friendly, and more interconnected solutions.

In China, Anbofu has been providing active safety, autonomous driving, new energy vehicles, and connected technologies and solutions in combination with the unique market environment in China.

According to Yang Xiaoming, President of Anbofu Asia Pacific, before the split in 2017, Delphi Engineering's total R&D investment exceeded $1 billion, accounting for more than 8% of the company's sales, which is Delphi's long-term R&D investment ratio.

Currently, Delphi has 16000 engineers worldwide, with over 3000 engineers in China and 18 factories in the country. This year, Anbofu also plans to rapidly increase its investment in software engineers.

Behind the restructuring and transformation at all costs, Anbofu's goal is only one: to provide brain and nervous system solutions for cars. With rich experience in system integration, Anbofu hopes to become a bridge between traditional automotive enterprises and technology companies, chip suppliers, and application developers.

Hard technology requires soft technology, and data processing is crucial

"Cars are becoming a computing platform capable of running complex software programs, and this change allows us to develop hardware independent software systems for cars," said Yang Xiaoming, President of Anbofu Asia Pacific.

Delphi emphasizes hard technology, while Anbofu focuses on soft technology. With changes in the industry's perception of automobiles, software development is breaking free from the limitations of hardware development cycles.

Anbofu has 6000 software engineers worldwide, with a total output of over 40 billion lines of software code per day. By 2020, this number will increase to over 150 billion rows.

Today, a car will generate a huge amount of data and input from the outside world. In just one second, the car may have exchanged over 15000 pieces of data information, and by 2020, this number will rise to 100000 pieces. The development of software technology cannot be separated from data processing. In addition to investing in two professional data processing companies in Israel, Otonomo and Valens, Anbofu also needs to further increase investment in data processing, processing, defense, and other aspects.

The generation, transmission, and utilization of the entire data are changing the face of the automotive industry, which is Amborf's clear understanding of the industry.

In order to ensure uninterrupted and secure data transmission, as well as real-time analysis of automotive data, the Anbofu Internet Service Platform has emerged. With the help of a scalable cloud platform, Anbofu can deliver AMoD (Autonomous Driving on Demand) and connectivity services, as well as support third-party application ecosystems and data economy businesses.

The cooperation between Anbofu and Lyft in autonomous driving is based on this.

Autonomous driving is very complex, perception is a strength, and computing platforms are also crucial

Autonomous driving is a complex system that has several major components in Amborf's understanding: software, sensors, sensors, computing platforms, power supply, data exchange, interconnected services, and most importantly, user experience.

As a well-established supplier, perception systems have always been a strength of Anbofu. As the level of autonomous driving changes, although the scenarios faced become more complex, the entire system architecture will also change accordingly. Anbofu combines the different characteristics of hardware and establishes a three-layer 360 ° perception through the combination of millimeter wave radar, LiDAR, and camera systems. The changes in architecture can greatly improve the overall system's perception of redundancy, reliability, and accuracy.

Perception is certainly important, and computing platforms also play a crucial role.

With the advent of the era of autonomous driving, the amount of data generated by sensors is growing geometrically, and the requirements and challenges of computing platforms are also increasing. In addition to the pressure of increasing data volume, a scientifically sound backup mechanism is also crucial. L4 autonomous driving requires a backup system, and Anbofu's computing platform includes two platforms. If any one of them fails, the other computing platform will immediately switch in to ensure the safe driving of the vehicle.

The design concept of redundant backup originated from airplanes, and functional safety is a significant difference from IT or consumer electronics in the traditional automotive industry.

Optimize the architecture of intelligent vehicles and build a safe nervous system

The future of automobiles has become increasingly software driven platforms, with more and more accessories and functions. The concept of the Internet of Things is becoming more profound, and the pressure of power and signal transmission is also increasing. The original architecture of automobiles is facing challenges. Faced with the data demand for L4 level autonomous driving, the current architecture system is already overwhelmed, and simply adding modules and increasing costs can no longer meet this function.

Anbofu proposed two systems, the brain and the nervous system, to support the new intelligent car architecture.

The brain system is the super processor, or supercomputer, in a car. It mainly consists of three systems: a supercomputer for autonomous driving, a supercomputer for security gateways, and a supercomputer for central position processors.

By embedding all software into the system through these three supercomputers, various functions such as vehicle active safety, information entertainment, and driving experience can be achieved, thus completing the entire brain assembly process.

The responsibility of the nervous system is to transmit signals, electrical energy, and energy to various parts of the vehicle body. Corresponding to this is the signal and power distribution system, which is like the eyes and ears, transmitting data from all sensors and modules around the vehicle to the central processing unit through the nervous system.

The focus on safety is not only on perception systems and computing platforms, but also on the design concept of high fault tolerance for the nervous system, which is internally referred to as the "three-layer failure protection system" by Anbofu. When the central processing unit, gateway, or power distribution system fails, the intelligent architecture will quickly compensate through the calculations of supercomputers to ensure the safety of vehicles and passengers.

For example, when a car is driving at a speed of 80 or 90 kilometers per hour on a highway, the gateway suddenly fails. At this time, the supercomputer will detect it, and the software and architecture design will enable the car's supercomputer to quickly take over the vehicle and drive smoothly to a safe place, ensuring the safety of passengers and vehicles.