"Human desire for information is like the hunger's desire for food. The calories of food can satisfy the demand, and the information is used to fill the brain."

As the most convenient information portal, smart phones have become an essential item for modern people's work and life. In a sense, smart phones have become the "organs" for people to obtain "information food" and satisfy people's thirst for information.

In addition to smart phones, more and more intelligent hardware devices have become the "extra" information portal for people. Smart TVs, smart speakers and other products are products that are eager for information expansion. For the car, the car system is an important information portal for people in the driving scene.

Today, with the maturity of Internet communication technology, the car system has become an important part of the current automotive technology. The improvement of vehicle performance through online OTA upgrade software has become a reality on Tesla models, and the car system has evolved as a car. The core part of "smart travel hardware", the blessing of 5G and artificial intelligence technology, will usher in an out-and-out "evolution".

In essence, the birth of the car system originated from people's thirst for information in the information age. The predecessor of the car system is a wireless radio player that comes standard with almost all modern vehicles.

In 1929, Cadillac introduced La Salle, the first model with an AM radio, and at that time, if you wanted to install a car radio for a car, you would have to pay $130, which is equivalent to the current $6,500. Until 1955, Chrysler began offering a full-transistor radio package for its models, and the car player officially entered the semiconductor era.

The rise of the second-generation in-car entertainment system represented by CD in the 1990s gave birth to the second revolution of the car system. With the development of human communication technology, after entering the 21st century, the third is represented by information intelligence. The car machine system began to be used in a wide range of applications, from the initial 256MB storage to the current 8-core dedicated processor, from the monochrome "calculator" screen to the standard 8-inch LCD touch display, car system Completed a historic leap in intelligent informationization.

From the radio to the CD to the 8-inch display, the interaction of the car system has undergone a qualitative change, and the exclusive Car OS operating system was born, thus enabling the full automatic driving to lay the foundation of the interaction level. In this process, Car The OS has gone through the following stages:

The Enlightenment Age of Car OS: Audio and Video Entertainment

At this stage, the development of the car system has long been subject to the manufacturer's closed production mode. As the operating entrance of the car audio and video navigation system, the car system basically meets the use requirements, but the attention to the human-computer interaction experience is low. On the other hand, the car at this stage is not used as a reference for consumer purchases.

Different from the general 3C digital products, the safety and reliability principles required for automobiles as vehicles make most car companies follow mature and reliable solutions, and the design of car systems is also the same. Under this principle, the interaction mode of the car system is dominated by buttons and knobs, while the individual high-end models use new technologies such as the touchpad and the iDrive system of BMW and the MBUX system of Mercedes-Benz.

Rapid growth in the era of "car networking"

The arrival of the era of Internet of Everything will not ignore the car system as the "third space" information portal. Nowadays, it is a consensus in the automotive industry to equip the car with a good operating system. Apple, Microsoft and domestic BAT have entered the market. In-vehicle intelligent operating system field.

Unlike the interactive systems that manufacturers have developed in the past, the Internet technology giants' Car OS Internet genes are more prominent. On the one hand, in the era of “Internet of Vehicles”, the integration of Internet services in Car OS is higher. On the other hand, in terms of interaction, it is more suitable for people's habit of using smartphones and reduces learning costs.

Taking Apple's Car Play as an example, the user can use the Linghting data line to realize the interconnection between the iPhone and the car. The map is displayed on the central control screen. After the link, the application under the driving scene can be realized by the operation of the control button on the vehicle.

Google's Android Auto is similar to Car Play in that it requires a phone link to implement music control, voice control and more.

The difference between Baidu's Car Life and the former two is that its "vehicle gene" is more pure. From the perspective of link mode, Car Play and Android Auto implement APP application through mobile phone mapping, while Car Life is compatible with Android and QNX. And the Linux car system, in simple terms, Car Life is the underlying operating system based on the car, and Android Auto and Car Play are an interactive way to solve the connection between the smartphone and the car system, so Car Life can Achieve compatibility with Android and iOS.

From the perspective of the technical path, Car Life and the car's own software program are deeper in level, so that the function of the car itself can be controlled, and the operation of opening the sunroof and adjusting the seat and other depth permissions can be realized through voice control.

Car OS " Growing up troubles"

In fact, the Car OS in the era of the Internet of Vehicles has a natural flaw, that is, it cannot achieve deeper data circulation with the automotive infrastructure software. On the one hand, the basic data of the automobile manufacturer is not allowed to flow out of the core business secrets, on the other hand, the tradition The lack of Internet talent in car companies and the high cost of self-built systems make it impossible to implement self-developed systems.

Commercially speaking, Car Play and Android Auto are in fact the product of compromise between automakers and third-party OS platforms. The importance of the car as the "third space" not only solves people's commuting needs, but also is an important information portal in the Internet era. At the same time, it is the data generation end of accurate user portraits, so whether it is a car manufacturer or a third-party platform. The value of these data is urgently needed.

For the Internet giants, the underlying data of vehicles is crucial for their car design, development of driverless technology, and development of automotive e-commerce business. Therefore, Internet companies including Google, Apple, and Baidu have made The flag of the car.

For car manufacturers, the driver's behavioral data image can help them to develop and improve products, while providing data support for the development of driverless systems.

On the other hand, since the opening of the underlying data involves the risk of leaking commercial confidential data by automakers, most automakers currently use a self-developed + third-party cooperation system. Therefore, automakers usually use the manufacturer’s own underlying operating system. The foundation is powered by Car Play and Android Auto to enhance the user experience.

Although Car Life has achieved deep cooperation with automakers through deep cooperation with automakers, it is still substantially limited in terms of authority, and it cannot truly achieve complete data circulation.

In recent years, the heat of the Internet of Vehicles has plummeted, on the one hand, it is related to the end of the incremental era of the automobile market, but the root cause is the immature system ecosystem.

Taking the mobile operating system war in the early years as an example, since the Saipan system failed, it has formed a three-point world of IOS, Android, and WP systems. A large number of third-party APP developers of IOS and Android have formed a perfect ecosystem. The system, although Microsoft has invested heavily in the ecological construction of WP, it has been unable to return to the sky. In fact, if Apple opened the IOS ecosystem in the past, then Android's high probability would fall to the same level as WP.

It can be seen that the mature ecosystem can build a strong protection barrier for the operating system itself, and for the car system, because the underlying system is subject to the limitations of the car manufacturer, compared to the smartphone operating system, in the interactive logic More chaotic, secondly, the lack of car machine ecology, the cost of content producers is high, in addition to high-frequency navigation, music and other content resources, there is a serious lack of content for the car system, so it is impossible to expand the application scenarios, thus falling into the ecology The "dead loop" that continues to deteriorate.

In addition, the security problem in the state of car network networking is also one of the important issues facing it. In 2015, two hackers remotely sent commands to control the Chrysler Uconnect in-vehicle system through a software tool, and successfully launched a Cherokee emergency braking and steering function, and then Attle Chrysler announced the recall of approximately 1.4 million software security. Vulnerable cars, this time is the first time in history that a recall was due to a software security breach.

In terms of human-computer interaction, the application of AI voice technology has made the car system ushered in the evolution of interaction mode, but subject to the development of speech recognition technology, there are still defects in the accuracy of speech recognition and semantic understanding in context. In addition, due to the limitations of network conditions, most car phone voice interactive systems still have problems such as high delay and slow response.

AI driverless and "smart space" in the 5G era

Undoubtedly, the arrival of the era of artificial intelligence will open a revolution in the field of travel. After the real popularity of 5G technology, 5G-based AI driverless technology will be further applied. In 2018, Baidu's world's first L4-class driverless car was officially mass-produced. The domestic driverless technology entered the world's first echelon, and the giants in this echelon also had Google and Tesla.

In fact, Tesla has initially achieved L5-level driverless driving based on MODLE S. Due to security risks and policy issues, mass production has not been mass-produced, but the technical completion has reached new heights.

In fact, Tesla's car system is not limited to the category of car networking, but the AI intelligent driving system based on high-performance chips. Car OS is no longer simply an entry point for car functions, but also a man-machine under AI control. The interactive channel and the car system are upgraded to an intelligent driving system with AI as the core. Including Tesla, Baidu's apollo, Google Waymo and Apple's unmanned system under development are all intelligent driving systems based on AI.

In the field of unmanned driving, Huawei, as a 5G communication technology service provider, also has a layout. At the annual developer conference held in October 2018, Huawei released a computing platform that supports L4-level autopilot capability - MDC600, which is said to be The platform consists of 8 Huawei AI chips rising 310, and integrates the CPU and the corresponding ISP module to meet the vehicle standard. In addition, Huawei's officially announced Hongmeng OS also supports the car platform.

The significance of 5G technology for AI unmanned driving is to break the spatial isolation of data, and realize the real-time online transmission of dynamic road conditions under unmanned driving with low delay, so that the dynamic driving data of the vehicle and the traffic big data can realize the bidirectional circulation on the bottom layer. Greatly improve the efficiency of vehicle travel and the efficiency of urban traffic control.

The application of 5G technology in the car system will also promote the forward evolution of the car operating system ecosystem. With faster transmission speed and lower latency, the content creation of the car terminal will also usher in new opportunities in AR. Under the blessing of technologies such as HUD, in-vehicle infotainment such as film sharing, mobile office and multi-modal interaction between vehicles will bring about a subversive change in the life of the car. At this time, the vehicle itself is no longer just a means of transportation, but Intelligent hardware with multiple functions such as office and entertainment has become an important "smart space" in people's lives.

Therefore, after the deep integration of 5G technology and vehicle system in the future, there will be a new wave of business opportunities in the fields of car audio and video content creation, vehicle office services and AR-HUD technology.

Conclusion:

From the development history of the car system, the car system is the product of satisfying people's information craving in the travel scene. Under the deep integration of 5G+AI artificial intelligence and driverless driving, Car OS is not only a product that meets people's information needs, but also a front-end portal for travel big data and a front-end contact for AI and human interaction.

Even though today's car systems are limited by the application of AI and 5G technology, in the foreseeable future, the car system will once again usher in a new era of prosperity, when it will be the interactive contact of “smart space”, Car OS It will also usher in the same industry reshuffle as the smartphone operating system of the year, and whether domestic Baidu, Huawei and other manufacturers can occupy the commanding heights of the industry in the upcoming war, we will wait and see.