Mission Possible: How Aptiv Expertise Is Helping Create a Safer, Greener and More Connected World
When the men and women of Aptiv set about crafting a mission for its newly formed company, they didn’t aim low. That mission: to make the world safer, greener, and more connected than ever before.
A lofty goal, no doubt. But with 100
years of automotive grade engineering innovation at its disposal, and a portfolio carefully crafted to support the brain and nervous system of the vehicle, Aptiv is deliver the real solutions that are bringing this mission to life.
No other technology provider can claim Aptiv’s leadership position in both the brain and nervous system of today’s (and tomorrow’s) vehicles. That’s because no other company has delivered as many advances in power, data,
central compute, and software.
Think of the brain as software embedded vehicle features, including advanced safety and autonomous systems, in-cabin experience, and data services, running on high performance supercomputers inside the
vehicle. These computing platforms deliver an exponential increase in compute power, enabling the features and services required for smart mobility.
But our brain doesn’t work on its own, and the vehicle brain is no different. Both
leverage a nervous system to transmit information. The vehicle’s nervous system is– it’s a reliable data network that gets the right data to the right place at the right time.
Let’s take a closer look at those areas,
and how each plays a role in helping Aptiv deliver on its promise to change the world.
POWER
Aptiv’s high- and low-voltage systems comprise one way we deliver on our mission to create a greener planet.
Electrification is one of the biggest automotive trends in the world right now, and Aptiv’s charging technology, connections, and electrical distribution systems enable solutions for all types of electrified vehicles - from the semi-trucks hauling your produce to the personal vehicles currently parked in your driveway.
Combined with our advanced lightweighting technologies like aluminum cabling for harnesses, connectivity solutions like V2X that enable fleet platooning, and our groundbreaking work in automated driving, the effectiveness of Aptiv power technologies is being measured in better fuel economy and lower vehicle emissions on a global scale.
DATA
With recent advances in infotainment, active safety, sensors, and electrical components, the amount of data pouring in from sources around the vehicle is staggering. Being able to manage it all is critical to delivering the safe and connected automotive capabilities the world now depends on.
The breadth and scale of Aptiv’s data portfolio allows the company to support today’s legacy protocols while developing the new protocols like automotive grade Ethernet and HDBaseT that the latest data-driven technologies require.
These protocols are an integral piece of the Smart Vehicle ArchitectureTM platform that tomorrow’s fail-safe operational vehicles are being built on, and Aptiv covers them all.
CENTRAL COMPUTE
Just how much data are we talking about when it comes to vehicles? Look at this way: In the time it took you to blink just now, an average vehicle processes 15,000 pieces of data. By 2020, that number jumps to more than 100,000 pieces of data - all in the blink of an eye.
Collecting and moving all this data requires a vast amount of computing power. That’s why Aptiv’s active safety computing platform, the first in the industry, is capable of processing at a speed that allows it to make decisions 34,000 times faster than a human.
And that’s just for starters. We also need to safely and securely connect the car to the ecosystem around it. Our secure gateways not only provide all the computing power necessary to enable high-speed data networking, but they also meet the most stringent functional safety and cybersecurity standards in the industry.
Your car is quickly becoming a holistic computing platform capable of executing complex software programs as quickly as a server. Aptiv’s central compute platform allows carmakers to develop software independently from the hardware, allowing car owners to upgrade their vehicle’s functionality and safety without having to upgrade their vehicle, too.
SOFTWARE
Speaking of software, your vehicle is becoming increasingly defined by it. It’s software, not hardware, that is now delivering the majority of your vehicle’s capabilities. As an example, that “click-clack” you hear when you put on your turn signal? That’s now a digital WAV file, not a physical relay.
That’s why, globally, Aptiv has more than 6,000 engineers focused on delivering the increasingly complex software solutions that enable the AI and machine learning that drives todays safety, in-cabin sensing, and autonomous applications. And in 2021, we’ll increase to more than 8,000 engineers.
A Mission Fulfilled
Power, data, central compute, and software. Aptiv expertise in each of these areas is helping us deliver every day on our mission is to help create a safer, greener and more connected world.
Mobility has the power to change the world. By combining our integrated brain and nervous system portfolio with our expertise in systems integration and software, only Aptiv has the holistic power to change mobility.
