Software-Defined Vehicles Harman Opens Its Automotive Software Platform

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With Harman's new open-source initiative, the company expects accelerated development times for software-defined vehicles and is breaking away from traditional development models in the automotive industry.

Vehicles are increasingly evolving from mechanical products to rolling data centers. While the hardware is largely standardized, in the future, software will determine functionality, user experience, and market differentiation. Now, Harman, an automotive supplier owned by Samsung Electronics, has released its comprehensive Connected Services Platform as an open-source project through the Eclipse Foundation. The Eclipse Connected Services Platform (ECSP) provides a complete infrastructure for the development and operation of connected vehicle applications, thus enabling the accelerated implementation of the software-defined vehicle (SDV) concept.

Production-Ready Platform for Connected Vehicles

The now publicly available ECSP platform is already in series production with vehicle manufacturers and fleet operators. The system was designed for the efficient management of up to 100,000 connected vehicles and supports central functions for modern vehicle architectures:

• Secure and reliable vehicle-cloud connectivity,

• Collection and processing of large data volumes,

• Comprehensive management of vehicles and devices,

• User and identity management,

• Provision of streaming applications and

• Real-time vehicle telemetry.

According to Harman, the open-source approach enables accelerated development of scalable SDV solutions through industry-wide collaboration and contributes to the standardization of essential vehicle functions.

Technical Architecture for Developers

For electronics developers with software expertise, the ECSP platform offers a modern microservices architecture with three main components:

• Offboard Platform: Cloud-based services for data processing using Kafka Streams, GDPR-compliant data storage, and vehicle connectivity via MQTT.

• Onboard Client: Ready-to-use C++ client for telematics control units (TCUs), electronic control units (ECUs), and in-vehicle infotainment systems (IVI).

• Vehicle Simulator: Test environment for simulating vehicle data and operations before production deployment.

Heiko Huettel, VP of Software Products at Harman, explains the strategy: "Our philosophy is to enable scalable SDV solutions through cooperation. With the open-source release, we offer other companies the opportunity to build on it, shorten development cycles, and jointly create a strong, open ecosystem."

Integration into the Eclipse SDV Ecosystem

Harman has been a strategic member of the Eclipse Software Defined Vehicle (SDV) Working Group since last year. Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation, emphasizes the significance of the contribution: "ECSP brings essential new features that significantly accelerate the development of flexible, cloud-native vehicle architectures in the open-source community. With enhanced connectivity, remote management, fleet, and data monitoring capabilities, ECSP offers automotive manufacturers a powerful open-source foundation for realizing differentiated driver experiences."

Open Collaboration as a Competitive Factor

The release of the platform follows an open collaboration model that has proven successful in the cloud computing industry. Similar to Kubernetes, which was originally developed by Google and is now the standard for container orchestration, ECSP could become the reference implementation for vehicle connectivity.

The open-source approach allows developers to adapt the software to specific requirements, contribute their own developments, and benefit from the improvements of the entire community. This reduces development costs and promotes interoperability between different systems.

Availability And Resources

The first public release of the ECSP platform is already available. Companies interested in participating in the project or using the platform can find more information here. The codebase and documentation are accessible via the official GitHub page of the Eclipse Foundation.

The release of the ECSP underscores the shift in the automotive industry, where software increasingly becomes the central differentiating factor. By opening the platform, Harman could play a key role in defining upcoming standards for software-defined vehicles while benefiting from a broader ecosystem of developers and applications. (heh)

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