Issue link: https://resources.mouser.com/i/1499865
High-Speed Data in Industrial, Automotive, Healthcare, and Data Centers 14 form part of a dynamic network in which information is shared with other road users and even traffic control infrastructure, with the potential to make travel safer and more efficient. Known as vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication, this technology will see cars equipped with more sensors, controls, and computing power than ever before. This will be even more critical in the much-publicized move toward autonomous or "self-driving" vehicles. Of the professionals who participated in the Molex and Mouser survey, 81% believe that Level IV autonomous driving will be available as a standard feature in new vehicles within the next 10 years. Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) are already providing the user with sophisticated solutions for road safety. Interaction with other road users will depend upon systems that can collect, analyze, and act upon information about their surroundings with the lowest possible delay or latency. These innovations are taking place at the same time as the move toward alternative power sources. Hybrid vehicles are already common, and many manufacturers have made commitments to eventually end production of vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. Battery power and even hydrogen fuel cells are seen as sustainable solutions for the future. Electric power and high-speed communications will all place greater demands on the cable harness systems of the next generation of vehicles. Manufacturers are using this as an opportunity to address the fundamental question of how vehicles are designed and created. Flat and Domain Architectures The largest producers have decades of experience in building vehicles. As a result, the architecture of their vehicles has grown over many years in a cumulative process as new systems are added. Connections from device to ECU to vehicle have been added in a haphazard way, with much duplication of wiring and complex structures. The result is a "flat" wiring architecture, a highly complex structure comprising a considerable amount of cabling, making its assembly an inefficient and labor-intensive task. This flat structure is unable to adapt to the new systems that the future of the automotive industry demands. Many manufacturers have moved to a more structured architecture, often referred to as a domain-oriented design. In this architecture, vehicle structures are grouped by function to provide control for the entire vehicle. Each domain features its own controller, whether for power train, safety systems, or infotainment. And each domain controller communicates with others using a gateway to create a unified, whole-vehicle system. However, the grouping of domains by function does not yet solve the problem caused by a profusion of cables. A single domain still comprises a range of devices deployed throughout the vehicle, requiring its own unique connection to the controller. While more adaptive than an old-fashioned flat architecture, the domain approach (Figure 3) is still a long way from the ideal solution for the future. It does, however, serve as a stepping stone toward a completely new approach to vehicle electronics that will change not only how cars work, but also how they are made, updated, and maintained. Figure 3: Evolution of automotive wiring architectures. (Source: Molex) While more adaptive than an old-fashioned flat architecture, the domain approach is still a long way from the ideal solution for the future.