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Monthly Archives: February 2018

  • February 28, 2018
  • 0

How Modern Retailers can Leverage Internet of Things for Supply Chain Management

Tags :

Category : Digital Commerce & Experience Blog

Increasing complexity of consumer demands, tightening market competition combined with digital disruption has driven the retail chains to go for a major overhaul of their operations – specifically the Supply Chain Management.

Today, modern retailers, are focusing on streamlining their supply chain, improving inventory management, enhancing logistics and transportation to meet the consumer demands and increase profitability.

Integrated Supply Chain Management (SCM) in times of IoT

The new age SCM is defined by parameters such as rapid, scalable, intelligent and connected.

A majority of business organizations are redesigning their supply chain management to make them new age. And the aim here is not only meet the consumer needs but also to address the major bottlenecks in the growth trajectory.

Following are some of the key supply chain related challenges confronting retailers across the world.

  • Delayed order delivery
  • Unpredictability of market trends
  • Demand – supply disparity

Internet of Things (IoT) is believed to deliver efficient and rapid solutions required to address these supply chain challenges by leveraging embedded sensor technology, Data science, Predictive maintenance and Machine Learning.

According to a new report from Aruba Networks, by 2019, 79% of retail organizations would have adopted Internet of Things (IoT) technology and 77% believe it will transform the retail industry.

Thus, IoT is surely going to determine the future course of retail organizations and bringing disruptive changes in their supply chain management systems.

How to Leverage IoT Benefits to transform Your Supply Chain:

Organizations are restructuring their supply chain management systems to distribute the supplies evenly across the value chain and improve the speed to market using IoT .
The Aruba report says that the majority of retail merchants find use of IoT in supply chain management, real time product tracking, warehouse and distribution management, ambience control (heating, lighting), and also for customized promotions.

IoT Benefits

Image Credit: evrythng.com

As a business organization looking for scaling retail operations and creating an integrated supply chain, you may want to leverage the following features of IoT in supply chain management :

  • Product tracking: Real-time monitoring and accurate tracking of the supply throughout the product life cycle using location based services (Geofencing, telematics) is bound to help you ensure timely and quality delivery of services and improve customer satisfaction.

  • Improve Transactional Efficiency: Most retailers struggle with consumers complaining about delayed product delivery, damaged or misplaced order.

    These instances could be prevented using the power of cognitive computing to analyze data and offer deep insights.

    Cognitive computing techniques help in keeping track of inventory and consumption levels; and in auto-replenishing the stocks, as and when needed, using efficient algorithms. Cognitive computing can offer end-to-end visibility of entire product shipment processes and automate the delivery process so that the supplies reach the consumer on time and in good shape.

    Thus, cognitive computing algorithms are also helping retailers in

    • Reducing the ordering-to-shelf cycle time
    • Reducing Supply – demand disparity
    • Reduce instances of lost or damaged goods

     
    ecommerce shop

    Image Source: orbcomm.com

  • Efficient Inventory management: With the help of IoT, the supply chain stake holders can build an efficient inventory system. In such a system, the information related to finished products, volume and time of orders, raw material availability, inventory and manufacturing capacity – all are captured using intelligent IoT devices.

    Needless to say, such a streamlined inventory system will help in increasing profitability, reducing loss due to waste and damage, and improve customer satisfaction through on-time delivery.

Thus, IOT empowers your supply chain management by facilitating more visibility, better planning, and efficient (both time and performance based) execution by creating a highly connected and traceable ecosystem. And it is crucial for you to know when and how to adopt IoT to suit your business model.

  • February 23, 2018
  • 0

4 UDS Protocol Software Services that Every Automotive Product Development Team Should Know

Tags :

Category : Embedded Blog

‘Body Electronics’, ‘Embedded Systems’, ‘Electronic Control Units’ (like Body Control Module, Powertrain, Transmission Control, Battery Management Systems), ‘Electric Motors’ and ‘Motor Control Systems’ – if you happen to eavesdrop the conversation of modern-day Automotive Product Development teams, chances are that you will hear a lot of these terms!

This is a testimonial of the amount of presence & influence of electronic embedded systems in the automotive industry. And this presence has been rapidly increasing and becoming more and more complex.

This rapid implementation also required facilitation of diagnostic and repair of these electronic embedded systems, when a fault occurs.

Thus, diagnostic systems were developed so that the product development teams, software/hardware testing teams and after-sales teams can detect faults in a vehicle by connecting their diagnostic tester tools to the electronic control units (ECUs) in the vehicle.

And this is where the software stack based on UDS Protocol (ISO 14229) plays a significant role.

What is UDS Protocol (ISO 14229)?

Unified Diagnostic Services (UDS) is an automotive protocol that lets the diagnostic systems communicate with the ECUs to diagnose faults and reprogram the ECUs accordingly (if required).

It is called unified because it combines and consolidates all the standards like KWP 2000, ISO 15765 and others.

UDS Layers

The Architecture of the UDS protocol is designed based on the Open System Interconnection (OSI) Reference Model. Hence, the UDS software stack has a layered architecture.

One of the major functions of UDS software stack is to store the fault code in the ECU memory for every issue that occurs in the vehicle and transfer it (to the client side) as and when required.

The diagnostic tester tool has a GUI that connects to the ECU, retrieves the fault code and displays it.

Why a Standard Software Solution for Vehicle Diagnostics was Needed?

As OEMs integrate/assemble automotive ECUs and components from different suppliers, the need for a standard diagnostic protocol was felt.

This is because, prior to a Unified Protocol, OEMs and suppliers had to deal with compatibility issues between different diagnostic protocols like KWP 2000, ISO 15765, and diagnostics over K-Line.

  • Unified Diagnostic Services (UDS) is the preferred choice of protocols for all off-board vehicle diagnostic activities. Off-board diagnostics refers to the examination of the vehicle parameters when the car is at servicing in the garage (while the vehicle is stationary).
  • ECU flashing and reprogramming can also be performed efficiently with the help of a UDS stack.
  • Additionally, UDS protocol is quite flexible and is capable of performing more detailed diagnostics as compared to other protocols like OBD and J1939.

Our UDS Protocol Stack is ISO 14229 compliant and comes with a one-time licensing fee. Want to know more?

Talk to our Consultant

You can also take a look at our free handy-dandy manual on the UDS Protocol Stack in a pdf format:

https://www.embitel.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/UDS-fact-sheet_1.1.pdf

List of Categories of Services Offered by an ISO 14229 UDS Protocol Stack

  1. Data Transmission Capabilities

    The data transmission capabilities of a UDS Protocol Stack enable the clients to read or write any information to or from the ECU.

    The data can be read or written on the basis of identifiers and periodic identifiers. The client can also read data from the physical memory at the specified address.

    • The information can range from static info like ECU serial number to some real time data like the current status of the sensors, engine speed, etc.
    • If the client wants the ECU to send periodic service values, then ‘Read Data By Identifier Periodically’ service will be required. The client can also write data by identifier and address. Using the write service, certain parameters such as threshold values and angles can be changed.
    • Usually, the permission to write some sensitive data to the ECU can be controlled by restricting the access using ‘Security Access Service’. Such permissions are reserved by the OEMs, as writing data to the ECU can interfere with the security and overall functioning of the vehicle.

    2.  

  2. Fault Diagnostics

    One of the main services of the UDS protocol is fault diagnostics. Whenever an issue occurs in the vehicle, a diagnostic trouble code (DTC) corresponding to the fault is stored in the ECU fault code memory (FCM). The service personnel at the garage can retrieve these DTCs by using the ReadDTCInformation service.

    • Fault Diagnostics service allows the client to read both emission related and non-emission related DTC information. The client can define a status mask based on which the DTC information will be displayed.
    • DTC Snapshot data can also be retrieved using this service.

    Note: DTC Snapshot data gives additional information about the engine’s parameters at the time of occurrence of the fault.

    The DTC information along with other data stored in the server can be erased if need be. ClearDiagnosticInformation service can be invoked to delete all such diagnostics data stored in the server.

    Once the fault codes are retrieved, the problem can be diagnosed efficiently, and repair work can follow.


    UDS protocol Stack

    3.  

  3. Upload/Download Capabilities

    As highlighted earlier, UDS protocol also supports ECU reprogramming. ECU reprogramming refers to updating the ECU software. This is required to resolve any existing bug or add newly developed modules in the ECU.

    Using the upload and download capabilities of UDS protocol, large packets of data can be sent and received from the car’s ECU for ECU reprogramming purpose.

    The client can invoke RequestDownload and TransferData service to initiate a data transfer to the server (ECU) from the client (diagnostic tester) using a tester device.

    • The server upon receiving the request will take all necessary actions to receive the data.
    • A positive response message is sent when the server has successfully received the message.

    Likewise, a RequestUpload service is used by the client to request data packets from the server.

    • One of its practical examples can be configuring the parameters related to the vehicle’s variant code. It implies that the client can download or upload the settings/configurations in order to change or adapt a particular variant.
    • Suppose a car has two variants and one of them has Anti-lock braking system (ABS) and the other doesn’t. The ECU of the variant with the ABS will need to be updated with configurations and settings to control the ABS. A task like this can be performed using this service.

    4.  

  4. Remote Routine Activation

    Vehicle Diagnostics may require testing the faulty component in a given range of parameters. Moreover, during the testing phase of the vehicle, some system tests may be required to run over a period of time.

    For all such tasks, remote routine activation service of UDS protocol is used.

    • In order to perform a test, a routine is triggered by the client in the server’s memory. There are two methods for ending this routine – one is where the client interrupts the routine to stop it, and the other is when the server/ECU finishes the routine after a specified time frame.
    • Using this service, the client can start a routine, stop a routine and also check the result that the routine produced after successful execution.

    For instance, the service personnel at the garage may use this service to run the engine fan for a certain period of time and record the results. This would help him understand a particular issue well and rectify it without using any hit and trial method.

The Final Word

UDS protocol is by far the smartest diagnostic protocol capable of performing detailed vehicle diagnostics.

The future of UDS protocol is quite bright in the automotive industry as it gives the flexibility to implement diagnostics independent of the medium (CAN,K-Line or FlexRay) the vehicle communicates with.

  • February 19, 2018
  • 0

AIS 140 Implementation in India: For Efficient and Safer Public Transport System

Tags :

Category : automotive-insights

 

The public transport system is the backbone of the Indian economy. Millions of people depend on them for commuting to their work every day.

Rapid economic growth has led to a humungous rise in the number of vehicles on the road. From 0.3 million registered vehicles in 1951 to 0.2 billion in 2015, the growth has been tremendous.

The transportation infrastructure in the urban areas of the country is finding it hard to handle such huge number of vehicles. Traffic congestion is one of the major challenges the authorities and decision makers are tackling today.

 

What is Automotive Industry Standard (AIS) 140?

Automotive-Research-Association-of-India-ARAI
source: ARAI
 
One of the most widely implemented methods to mitigate such traffic problem is Intelligent Transportation System (ITS). It is an umbrella term that subsumes traffic management solutions, public transport management, emergency management, etc.

Government of India has recently decided to frame policies to implement ITS in collaboration with a Geneva based road federation corporation. The standards laid down, would take care of several issues that plague the public transportation services.

Under the ITS, Automotive Industry Standard (AIS) along with Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) has framed certain AIS Guidelines and AIS 140 is one among them.

Automotive Industry Standard 140 (AIS 140) is a set of standards published by ARAI (Automotive) for vehicle tracking system, camera surveillance system, and emergency request button.

The government has directed every state’s public transport department to make sure that all passenger carrying buses conform to the AIS 140 guidelines by 1st April 2018.

To begin with, in order to comply with AIS 140 guidelines, every bus will need to have a GPS tracking system, camera surveillance and an emergency button. This will help the department in tracking the bus in case of any emergency and also enable the passengers to apprise the control room of any kind of mishap or other emergencies.

Both the existing vehicles as well as the future ones will be required to be fitted with GPS and emergency button. This implies that the automotive OEMs along with aftermarket companies and Tier 1 suppliers need to have these systems ready.

Moreover, the vehicle health monitoring system will seek expertise of automotive embedded solution providers as CAN Stacks, OBD Stacks, and J1939 Stacks will have to be configured and integrated in the vehicles.

AIS 140 standard will also play a vital role in bringing the much-needed change in transport industry. Incorporation of Advance Driver Assistance System (ADAS) and Augmented Reality (AR) in public transport vehicles will be expedited once this standard is implemented in its entirety.
 

Partner with Embitel for AIS 140 Compliant Product Development

At Embitel Technologies, we welcome such government initiatives that are aimed to make our daily commute efficient and safe

As an Automotive OEM, Supplier or a Public Transport undertaking, partner with us to complete AIS 140 certification and leverage our 11+ years of our expertise in automotive embedded system technology for a winning RoI

Services for AIS 140 Standard compliance and certification:

  • Design and development of AIS 140 compliant embedded hardware & software
  • Customization and Integration of ready-to-deploy OBD2 (over CAN) stack. This OBD2 software stack is available as a re-usable component under a one-time licensing fee model
  • Customization and Integration of any other automotive communication and diagnostics protocol stacks like J1939, UDS, CAN FD along with Bootloader

 

Talk to Our AIS 140 Experts Today

Sirji
 

Vidya Sagar Jampani, Business Unit Head (IoT)
(The Master of all ‘IoT Trades’!)

Sirji
 

Kuldeep Singh | Business Manager
(Loves all things ‘Automotive’, a passionate biker!)

 

Talk to our AIS Consultant

Highlights of AIS 140 guidelines:

  • Automatic Vehicle Location Tracking
  • Vehicle Health monitoring
  • In-vehicle video surveillance and recording
  • Emergency Request
  • In-vehicle passenger information
  • In-vehicle automatic ticketing

 

  • February 12, 2018
  • 0

Porting of Android OS on Toradex SoM for a Smart Electric Scooter

Tags :

Category : HMI/UI & Infotainment , Product Engineering

 

About the Customer:

A prominent electric vehicle startup, our customer has embarked on the journey of ‘Make in India’. This company of young entrepreneurs is designing Smart Electric Scooters, from the ground up, in India.

Headquartered in Bangalore, the automotive startup is working towards bringing the electric vehicles to the mainstream market and providing a superior commute experience.
 

Business Challenge:

The customer had been working on making connected Smart electric scooters with the help of an in-house team. The critical areas of software and hardware development involved designing of the battery management system, dashboard HMI, battery pack, vehicle suspension and more.

The proposed fully connected, smart electric scooter boasts of advanced features such as on-board navigation, remote vehicle diagnostics and Android Infotainment system. This advanced infotainment platform had been initially built on a Toradex SOM and was running on the Linux 3.14.28.

But owing to the growing popularity of Android as a dominant OS that caters to a wide array of Android Apps, the customer wanted to port Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) onto their Toradex SOM with carrier card.

Here the challenge was that the Toradex module does not inherently support Android Operating System capabilities.

Thus, our customer started looking for a reliable embedded product development specialist who could help them with seamless Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) porting and provide technical support on Toradex platform without affecting the performance of their infotainment system running Linux.
 

Embitel Solution:

Porting of Android
During the brainstorming sessions and technical workshops, customer developed trust and confidence in the embedded software and hardware expertise of our team. Also, our past experience in developing an end-to-end Infotainment and Automotive Head-up Display systems proved to be a value-added advantage for our customer.

Equipped with a technically strong and experienced team, we took up the challenge of migration to the Android 6.0 OS without affecting the performance of the infotainment system running on Linux.

The Embitel team took charge to build an Android based solution that involved:

  • Setting up the Build Environment.
  • Porting of Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) onto Toradex SOM which was running Linux 3.14.
    • Porting Bootloader
    • Porting kernel
    • Porting Android file system
    • Porting the flashing mechanism from NXP to Toradex
    • Porting the Go Application from Linux OT to Android
  • Integrating Android with the following modules
    • Ublox SARA-U270-00S GSM module with data profile
    • Ublox EVA-M8M GPS modules
    • LSM9DS1 IMU module – A, G,M
    • LVDS based display
    • I2C based touch screen
    • TI CC2564 based Bluetooth module connected over HCI UART.
  • User acceptance testing and document testing

 

Embitel Impact:

Our customer was able to make a smooth and effortless transition to Android M, which seemed quite challenging for them in the beginning.
 

Tools and Technology

  • Cross compiler tool chain for ARM
  • Freescale MFG tool
  • Android 6.0 OS
  • Android SDK
  • File Editors such as Vim , gedit
  • February 9, 2018
  • 0

List of Top IoT Data Analytics Solutions: Featuring MS Azure, AWS, IBM Watson, SAP Analytics Cloud and more

Tags :

Category : Embedded Blog

Introduction

IoT solutions find their use-cases across various industries – Logistics, warehouse monitoring, manufacturing, quality management, facility management, vehicles in transit and more.

The volume of IoT sensor data is growing each day and the need to analyze and gather insights from them is also growing at a rapid pace.

As an organisation, one needs a robust IoT Analytics solution to analyze the historical data as well as real time data. With the introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies, advance IoT analytics solutions are also capable of predicting the occurrence of a future event (e.g: Predictive maintenance of industrial machinery).

For your IoT data analytics needs, you can either go with custom IoT analytic solutions or choose from the top IoT analytic solutions available in the market to integrate it with your existing IoT applications.

Let’s look at few of the top (IDC report) IoT data analytics tools in the market.

Microsoft Azure Stream Analytics

Microsoft’s Azure Stream Analytics can be easily integrated with Azure IoT hub and Azure IoT suite to perform real time analytics on the IoT sensor data.  Azure Stream Analytics helps companies deploy AI powered real time analytics and unlock the full value from the data. It’s also easy to create dashboards with Power BI and visualize the data and to see actionable insights.

AWS IoT Analytics

AWS IoT analytics automates the most difficult tasks associated with analysis of the IoT data and is a fully managed service which makes it easy to run complicated data analytics algorithms.  It is one of the easiest IoT analytics platform to run analytics on the edge and get accurate insights. With AWS IoT Analytics, we can store only the relevant data from the sensor and enrich the data with device specific metadata such as device type and locations.

AWS IoT Data Analytics is a fully managed and can support up to petabytes of IoT data. So, you can easily manage your IoT applications, without worrying about the hardware and infrastructure. Using AWS IoT Analytics users can, easily run queries on IoT data, run time analytics, optimize data storage and analyze using machine learning. AWS has a pay as you go pricing plan which enables companies of all sizes to test and choose AWS IoT analytics.

SAP Analytics Cloud

SAP Analytics Cloud has options to integrate IoT data to its analytics solution and analyze and visualize the data better. SAP Analytics cloud is enhanced with the power of predictive analytics and machine learning technology. SAP also has Streaming Lite module, which is a to-the-edge component designed to remotely deploy streaming projects.  Streaming Lite is relevant if you wish to deploy projects on remote gateway devices – it is not required as part of a standard smart data streaming installation.

IBM Watson IoT Platform

Analytics is a part of IBM Watson’s IoT platform. With this solution users can easily analyze and visualize the IoT data and perform complicated analytics on the data from various IoT devices. IBM uses cognitive computing to extract valuable insights from structured and unstructured data and help users to understand the data better. IBM Watson provides Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, and image and text analytics to enrich IoT apps.

Cisco Data Analytics

With Cisco Data analytics it’s easy to run analytics applications in the entire network from the cloud to the fog. Cisco provides infrastructure and tools for businesses to perform analytics on the collected IoT data. Cisco IOx APIs helps companies to make the data available to the internal applications to improve operational efficiency. Cisco IoT analytics infrastructure offers:  Infrastructure for Real-time Analytics, Cloud to Fog, Enterprise Analytics Integration and Analytics for Security

Oracle Stream Analytics and Oracle Edge Analytics

Oracle’s IoT Analytics solution is a combination of both Oracle Stream Analytics and Oracle Edge Analytics. Oracle’s solutions help you to develop analytics application which can read and analyze data from various sensors and devices and provide valuable insights. Both Stream Analytics and Edge Analytics can process and analyze huge volumes of streaming data collected from sensors and devices.

Conclusion

Implementing the right analytics solutions either by purchasing off-the shelf IoT solution or outsourcing the development of cloud based analytics solution is critical for the success of an IoT project. Are you going in the right direction? Is your IoT application providing you with the right insights? Contact us and book a free session with our experienced IoT consultants and we will help you to derive the best value out of your IoT implementation.

  • February 8, 2018
  • 0

From BMW, Mazda to Mercedes, The Curious Case of Integration of the Car Head-up Display with Infotainment

Tags :

Category : Embedded Blog

Head-up Display (Car head-up display) technology has been around since the World War II. It was developed for the fighter jet planes to engage the enemy aircrafts and targets without any distractions.

In the 80’s, it did make its presence felt in the automobile industry but in a very basic form.

Come 2018, the Heads-up Display (Car head-up display) has come of age and evolved courtesy cutting edge automotive electronics, embedded software and hardware.

The implementation of Augmented Reality (AR) has made head-up display an important part of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS).

Innovations in automotive electronics have led to the development of Car Head-up Display that can display valuable information right in the field of view of the driver.

This mitigates the distraction caused by the Infotainment fitted mostly in the centre of the car dashboard.

In fact, the automotive OEMs are looking forward to integrating the Vehicle Infotainment and Car Heads-up Display systems so that they can complement each other and assist the driver better.

Car Head-up display

Source: Opel Cars

Drivers of the Car Head-up Display (head-up display) Market

  • Adoption of ADAS by Automotive OEMs: The OEMs are likely to include more ADAS applications in the vehicles in the next decade. Those systems that help in monitoring the road conditions and issuing advance warnings to the drivers are being primarily focused. Heads-up display is considered to be one such critical ADAS product.


    In addition to the luxury cars that are already being fitted with advanced Car head-up display, the OEMs, including the electric vehicle start-ups, are looking to introduce Head-up Display to the budget cars as well.

    Aftermarket suppliers like Navdy and Continental are already investing heavily in heads-up display and infotainment solutions.

  • Consumer’s demand for in-vehicle safety features: The car consumers are more concerned about their safety. News of passenger cars not passing the stringent global crash tests has been one of the reasons for their worry.


    A Car Head-up Display may not be helpful when a collision happens but its ability to prevent accidents is known to all.

    The automotive OEMs have acknowledged these requirements of the consumers and are collaborating with different suppliers or investing in their own R&D.

The Early Bird OEMs Who Have Embraced Head-up Display Technology

BMW

BMW has been one of the pioneers when it comes to embracing Head-up displays. Different variants of head-up displays integrated with infotainment systems have been installed in the BMW cars depending on their models and cost.

The 7 series BMW has by far the most advanced head-up display that takes input from the infotainment system. The head-up display displays lane exit warnings, shows speed limit and also lets the users answer or reject calls.

Mazda

Called the Active Driving Display, the head-up display system in Mazda 3 and Mazda 6 is slightly different from BMW.

There is a combiner glass that opens up as you turn the ignition on. The information is projected on this glass, unlike BMW, Volvo and Mercedes where the display is projected on the windshield.

Again the head-up display in this car too, is controlled by the infotainment system. The user can control what to see on the head-up display, viz. navigation, street info, tachometer etc.

Mercedes

Mercedes has always been on the top of the game when it comes to integrating technology to the car. The same is true for the heads-up display.

Although the head-up display is integrated to the in-vehicle infotainment system, there is a separate button to switch it on. The head-up display can be customized for brightness, position and content to be displayed by the buttons on the steering wheel.

Volvo

Known as the safest vehicle, Volvo has also included head-up display in its most popular model XC90. The option to activate the head-up display is in the infotainment systems.

All that a user has to do is to choose head-up display as the display and information such as vehicle’s speed, navigation, etc will be displayed on it.

A small projector resting on the dashboard projects the image on to the windshield. One interesting feature that this head-up display boasts is that it remembers the driver’s seat preferences.

Jaguar

Jaguar offers a similar form of head-up display where the car’s info is projected on the windshield; however, what makes it stand out is the use of laser holographic technique.

This feature does not let the sun glare affect the visibility of the information.

The Integration of the Infotainment System with the Car Head-up Display

There has been a long-standing debate about the infotainment system as more of a distraction than a utility to the drivers, especially when they are using the navigation feature or get a call while driving.

They have to shift their focus from road to the infotainment systems which affects driving for obvious reasons. An head-up display by the virtue of its design and positioning on the dashboard mitigates this distraction to a large extent.

Now the real magic happens when these two automotive systems are integrated. By integrating the head-up display and infotainment systems, the OEMs are able to save cost on the hardware substantially.

The Infotainment software is built on top of the hardware and simply relays the desired information like speed, navigation, etc. to the heads-up display.

The head-up display need not be connected to the OBD port in this case. A projector sits on the dashboard and reflects the info on the combiner glass which in turn is reflected on the windshield.

What information will be reflected by the projector of the head-up display is either decided by the OEMs or the consumers themselves, depending on the degree of customization provided.

Advantages of an integrated head-up display and infotainment systems

  • Driver’s distraction is mitigated.
  • Single hardware serves both infotainment systems and head-up displays thus reducing the cost for OEMs.
  • An external Smartphone need not be connected to the head-up display.
  • No OS needs to be installed on the head-up display.

Where’s the Head-up Display Market Heading?

An head-up display is not meant to replace an infotainment systems but to complement it and OEMs are doing exactly that.

Heads-up display systems are being adopted quite rapidly in the high-end cars and it is about time that they also find inclusion in the budget car category.

Report by Grand View Research, Inc suggests that the head-up display market is expected to grow at a CAGR of approximately 26% and will be worth USD 9.02 billion by the year 2020.

Going by the pace of the innovation in car head-up display and infotainment system, we can witness features that would make driving easier, safer and more entertaining.

  • February 8, 2018
  • 0

Linux OS Porting for a Europe Based Telematics & Fleet Management Solution Provider

Tags :

Category : HMI/UI & Infotainment , Product Engineering

 
About the Customer:

One of the global leaders in fleet management solutions, our customer has headquarters in Belgium. Their fleet management software and hardware solutions have been deployed in over 1,15,000 connected vehicles.

With customer base of more than 1,400 customers spread across 23 countries, this European innovator has been delivering fleet management products for the transport industry for more cost –effective and efficient processes.
 

Business Challenges:

Android Porting case study
 
One of the successful commercial telematics products of our customer has been designed on Windows CE operating system. But Windows being a proprietary OS meant that our customer had to pay high costs every time the Windows OS had to be installed or updated or a technical support was required. All this lead to the additional license cost and investments in software/hardware development.

Hence our customer decided to make a switch to a more robust and open source platform such as Linux, which is available for zero license cost, is more flexible, compatible, and came with multiple technical support options available in the market for free.

Customer was also looking for a trusted and experienced embedded product development company who could make the transition seamless without affecting the performance of the Telematics application.

The Embitel Solution:

After the first technical workshop, the customer developed trust in our embedded product development expertise.

Since our Linux team had previously worked with other customers for Android/Linux porting projects, we were well-equipped for this new challenge

In this telematics project, our team was tasked to ensure that the ported Linux OS should be of production grade quality ; within the challenging timeline set by the customer.

Linux porting on Telematics Unit:

  • Establish and Customize YOCTO Build System for different versions of hardware platform
  • Customizing u-boot, kernel and rootfs
  • Provide SDK for further development at customer end
  • Integration Of:
    • Vendor Provided device drivers
    • 3rd party drivers
    • Open Source Drivers
  • Customizing standard Linux drivers
  • Implementing power management as per customer requirement
  • Develop Hardware Abstraction Layer for modules GPS, GSM etc…
  • Develop Validation Test Framework for required modules like GPS, GSM Power Management, CAN etc..
  • Design and develop Firmware Over-The-Air (FOTA)
  • Testing and Integration

 

Embitel Impact:

Our customer was able to successfully switch from a licensed platform (Windows CE) to an open source and a more cost effective platform ( Linux).
 

Tools and Technology

  • Cross compiler tool chain for ARM
  • Pin Mux Configuration Tools
  • AM3354 processor from TI
  • TI’s SDK
  • February 3, 2018
  • 0

Best Practices for Successful Integration of ERP/CRM With Your Magento 2.0 eCommerce Website

Category : Digital Commerce & Experience Blog

Magento has enabled several businesses to bring their stores online with its amazing built-in features and a vast list of extensions.

Close to 2,50,000 websites are powered by Magento Commerce Platform, the most popular being Land Rover, Wrangler, Lee, and Made.com

Online storefronts built on Magento 2 platform are equipped with all the capabilities to generate enhanced sales and revenues for the business.

But that’s just the surface of the ocean. To be a successful ecommerce business, a well-designed storefront needs a solid and robust backend.

The backend systems like ERP/CRM go a long way in ensuring that the buying experience to the shoppers is seamless.

As an ecommerce business owner, it is important that you ensure that the payment completion is instantly followed by the order confirmation along with the order id to enable customers to track their purchase.

Also, your ecommerce storefront should be aware of the inventory status to ensure the payment is captured only when the availability of the product is confirmed.

Magento ERP integration

Source– Best free web resources

There are several such scenarios that need to be taken care of, in order to provide a smooth and delightful shopping experience.

Magento 2 ERP integration solves most of these problems, provided due diligence has been exercised during the process of integration.

When done right, the Magento 2 ERP integration ensures that the entire experience of the buyers on Magento shopping website or app goes several notches higher.

Magento ERP integration brings in a slew of benefits:

  • No delay in the exchange of data from Magento 2 to ERP system to expedite order processing and delivery.
  • No discrepancy in the stock count ensures your storefront is updated about the stock in real-time.
  • The customer always receives the right product as the processes and workflows are automated.
  • The logistics is also optimized resulting in cost-efficient operations.

In order to provide a smooth order fulfilment of the customers, the data flow between your ERP/CRM and Magento platform should be seamless. A flawless Magento-ERP integration can alone ensure this.

The complexity of Magento ERP integration can be overwhelming depending on the size and nature of the storefront.

Enlisted here are some best practices to follow during the Magento ERP integration.

  • Be clear about your expectations: Rather than following the trend, it is advisable to have your expectations clear from Magento 2 ERP integration.

    • Whether it is the bringing down of the cost or to scale up the business or retaining the customers, the objectives must be clearly drawn out. The expectations thus set will form the basis of other best practices that we will discuss further.

  • Be specific about the data to be shared: The data that is transferred to the ERP from Magento platform needs to be identified on the onset.

    • In addition to the product, order and inventory data, your business may also require customer’s information to be stored in the CRM or ERP as well.The customers’ data may include the shipping addresses, contact information and purchase history to name a few.

    A 2-way data transfer is always recommended between the ERP and Magento, however, the primary source of data that actually has the right to own and store the information needs to be identified.

    Without this fundamental understanding, the entire integration process may prove to be unyielding.

  • Getting the Timing and Triggering Right: The data-flow between Magento and ERP system triggers different processes. For instance, after the payment has been processed, the ERP system must get the order details so that it generates an order Id and sends it back to Magento, which in turn could include it in the emails and other communications.

    • A communication between ERP and Magento is also warranted before the payment is captured to ensure the availability of the product. This data exchange should be fast and seamless

  • Address the Middleware Requirement: The need for a third component in the Magento-ERP association arises in the case of multi-channel selling.

    • The orders that are received from different channels including mobile apps require integration  with the help of different APIs.

    A middleware comes in handy in such multi-channel selling use-cases. It acts as a hub that makes the data-flow more streamlined.

    From the security standpoint as well, a middleware is worth investing on. ConnectPoint is a widely used middleware in Magento ERP integration

  • End-user Experience: The customers must not have the slightest idea that an ERP or CRM is behind the storefront.

    • The data transfer should be fast and seamless. If the ERP affects the experience of the users in an adverse manner, that means the integration still has some scope for improvement.

Final Remarks

Integration of Magento 2 with your preferred ERP or CRM system positively impacts the productivity as well as the efficiency of the process.

The seamless flow of data across the business ensures that large volumes of low-priced SKUs’ are handled well and customer service is uninterrupted.

This way, you are able to maximize the ROI on Magento as well as the ERP/CRM system. The best practices enlisted above can be helpful in helping you achieve your business goals.

  • February 3, 2018
  • 0

B2B eCommerce Trends to Watch Out for: Progressive Web Apps, AI, Personalisation

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Category : Digital Commerce & Experience Blog

The B2B e-commerce industry is expected to chart an exponential growth. According to a report published by Forrester, a leading American market research firm, the B2B e-commerce sector will reach $1.2 trillion and account for 13.1% of all B2B sales in the US by 2021.

Not only this, the B2B e-commerce sector is at the forefront of a rapid change fueled by digitization and automation of business processes.

ecommerce trends 2018

Source: securecdn.pymnts.com

Of late the B2B E-commerce industry has seen a paradigm shift in their sales approach as well. What used to be a single channel; direct selling model that was mostly done through online catalogs and wholesale purchasing is now moving towards an omnichannel selling.

At the core of this transformation lies the need for a faster, and more streamlined backend operation that is more efficient and reduces both energy and time for operational tasks.

All these disruptions in the B2B e-commerce business model, customer expectations, and supply chain have led to transformative innovations. In this blog, we take a look at some of the major B2B Ecommerce trends in 2018:

  1. Effective Online B2B Marketing strategy is a game changer :

    In 2018, the e-commerce websites would be expected to act as a one stop destination for everything a B2B buyer wants – from detailed catalogs for product and pricing information to online shopping and payments, from relevant quotes to real-time information.

    An analysis of B2B ecommerce trends by Forrester suggested that 74% of B2B buyers do online research for at least half of their work purchases. Thus it is very important to have a solid e-commerce digital marketing strategy for B2B sellers. Identifying the right customer acquisition strategy and a content strategy is going to gain relevance for B2B space. This can be achieved through:

    • Identifying best social media strategy to promote and share ‘valuable ‘content that is relevant to your buyer’s context.
    • Improve visibility in the online space through effective marketing strategy.
    • Establishing a brand trust by offering quality information through blogs, insightful videos, and infographics.
    • Using the power of Social media for social selling for influencing the buyer’s purchasing decision and interactive customer engagement.

  2. Customer Relationship Management is the key to Future:

    B2B customers are also looking for enhanced customer experience which can only be achieved through a solid customer relation strategy. Interacting with the customer and offering real time answers to their queries and concerns helps establish brand trust and to identify and address the customer concerns. B2B e-commerce players need to fully tap the best of interactive tools like Chatbots, superior CRM tools and social media platforms – which would be largely determining the growth chart of the B2B space in the coming years.

  3. Offering a rich Personalized Experience in B2B websites:

    Today the success of any business, whether it is B2C or B2B, is largely dependent on how well they can cater to their customer. In today’s era, which belongs to the service industry, satisfactory customer experience calls for an agile response, affordable prices, customized options that are in tandem with their buying habits.

    b2b ecommerce trends

    Source: irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com

    But the important challenge is to create a personalization strategy that takes into account the complexities associated with a B2B e-commerce, namely:

    • Diverse customer profile ranging from suppliers to dealers, to channel partners
    • Complicated product and service configuration
    • Variable Pricing structure and Order sizes
    • LTL shipping
    • Complex contractual terms such as quotes, POs

    In the B2B e-commerce space, personalization of the websites would mean a smart use of advanced technologies and data analytics to capture user-centric data. This also means integrating their omni channel strategy with their marketing strategy for a self- service experience to their B2B buyers. Some of the B2B players have already embraced this B2B ecommerce trends by offering personalization features such as personalized catalogs, configurable product, price and quotes etc.

  4. Progressive Web Apps:

    Yet another disruptive B2B ecommerce trends that is a hot topic of discussion amongst the B2B sellers is that of the Progressive Web Apps (PWAs). PWAs have accentuated the user- friendliness and ease of navigation that came into the picture with mobile apps. PWAs are versatile web apps designed to offer the native app experience through a mobile browser. PWAs can be accessed through simple URLs, indexed by search engines, and even work offline.

    Progressive Web Apps endows the business with an improved customer-centric approach, faster and streamlined operations through highly responsive and easy to navigate web apps.
    Research findings show that various business organizations that have already opted for PWAs have started seeing results in terms of increased conversion rate, more revenue, and reduced bounce rate.
    Case in point is a B2B commerce giant Alibaba, who has managed to increase its conversion rate by a whopping 76% by building progressive Web Apps.

  5. The AI Influence on B2B ecommerce trends:

    In this data-backed era, where Machine learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are pretty much predicting the future course of all businesses, the B2B e-commerce players need to keep their eyes wide open. Many online retailers, especially in the B2C space, are already utilizing the power of AI to predict the consumer market pricings and trends, to learn the customer persona, and accordingly to offer a personalized shopping experience. This trend is reflecting in the B2B segment too.

    B2C e-commerce sites are making use of AI to collect and analyze their user’s data so as to offer customized features such as suggestive reorders, suggestive selling of supplements or catalogs.
    AI can also help in improving the operational efficiency, and pace up the order processing through features such as auto replenish stock, advanced search options using voice recognition – to name a few.

Thus, it would be apt to say that the B2B e-commerce sector is all set to charter new growth path with the help of advanced data analytics and digital tools

  • February 1, 2018
  • 0

Migration to Bharat Stage (BS) VI: Emission Control, Fuel-Grade, Automotive Electronics and ECU Challenges

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Category : Embedded Blog

What is Bharat Stage VI

Bharat Stage VI (BS VI) is an emission standard that will bring much-needed changes in the Indian automobile industry in terms of pollutant emissions. With this emission norm coming into effect, India will come at par with the US, European countries and other advanced automotive markets across the globe.

India is currently following BS IV norms that were adopted this year across the country.

Bharat Stage VI norms includes a wide list of technology modifications under the hood, the most significant being making OBD (On-board diagnostics) mandatory for all vehicles.

Why India Felt the Need to Leapfrog from BS IV to BS VI

India is a country with 10 most populated cities of the world and this is one distinction we should not be proud of.

Vehicular emission is a major contributor to the worsening air quality of Indian cities. Emission of NOx, SO2, CO2 and particulate matter is taking a toll on people’s health. In cities like Delhi, the PM2.5 level is more than 6 times the prescribed levels by WHO.

In October 2016, India signed the Conference of Protocol also known as the Paris Climate Agreement. Being a signatory to the agreement, India is obligated to bring down the carbon footprint by 33-55% from the levels recorded in 2005 in the next 12 years.

This warranted the need for a stricter norm that could reduce the emissions considerably and put India on track to meet the Paris agreement goals.

Ideally, BS V would have been rolled out by 2021 and BS VI in 2024 but leapfrog to Bharat Stage VI norms by 2020 had to be planned because of the carbon footprint obligations.

BS6

Source: CSE computation based on data provided by trasnportpolicy.net)

Advantages of BS VI over BS IV

BS VI is in lines with Euro VI norm already adopted in European countries. In fact, this new emission norm will also address one major drawback in the Euro VI norm that allows emission of higher PM (particulate matter) in diesel engines.

Enlisted here are some major benefits of Bharat Stage VI norms

  • NOx emission will come down by approximately 25% for the petrol engine and 68% for the diesel engines.
  • The PM emission will see a substantial decrease of 80% in diesel engines.
  • OBD will become mandatory for every vehicle and it will help monitor the pollution caused by the vehicle in real time.
  • RDE (Real Driving Emission) will be introduced for the first time that will measure the emission in real-world conditions and not just under test conditions.
  • Bharat Stage VI norms will also change the way particulate matter is measured. It will now be measured by number standard instead of mass standard thereby, regulating the fine particulate matter as well.

The reason behind making OBD mandatory is to make sure that the emission control component work at its optimum efficiency at all times.  OBD port will help to detect the malfunction with the help of the error codes sent by the malfunctioning component.
BS 6 quote

What are the Technology Challenges for OEMs in Shifting from BS IV to BS VI

Taking a leap from BS IV to BS VI comes with immense technical challenges. It took Europe 9 years to completely implement the Euro 6 standards.

As the deadline for implementing Bharat Stage VI norms has been set 2020, the OEMs have an uphill task to execute.

Although BS VI is based on Euro 6, the OEMs cannot simply add required component to the vehicle. For instance, fitting a Euro 6 complaint DPF in a small diesel car in India will require bonnet size to increase, thereby going beyond 4 meters mark. This may lead to a loss in excise benefit.

For home-grown OEMs like Mahindra and Tata etc, the challenge is even bigger. They have a huge product line ranging from small passenger cars to heavy trucks where they need to implement the new standards with utmost precision. Some of these car manufacturers have been exporting EURO VI engines to Europe and other countries so the technology is not the underlying problem but rather its multiplication over hundreds of platforms.

Constraints Related to Emission

To keep both PM and NOx level under check, the OEMs would require diverse technologies to work in tandem. A Diesel particulate filter (DPF) will be fitted in the automobile to expel particulate matters from the exhaust gas. Similarly, for NOx reduction, selective catalytic reduction (SCR) and exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) will be used. In a nutshell, the engine will now a have a purification plant built into them.

These components and standards will have to be calibrated, tested and validated. The process will be akin to an extensive R&D and will require revamping the automotive product development processes. The cost involved in such a transition is estimated to be huge and some of this cost may have to be passed on to the end-users.

The increase in weight resulting from the inclusion of these devices has also to be kept at its minimum in order not to affect the fuel-efficiency of the engine which is one of the major deciding factors for the car buyers.

Concerns over Fuel Grade

Every pollution emission norm is partially based on the type of fuel used in the vehicle, based on which it limits the amount of permissible emission. In the transition from BS IV to BS VI as well, fuel companies have an important part to play. They will need to make the specified grade of fuel available before April 2020.

The BS III and BS IV compliant vehicles were able to run on the fuel that was in circulation for the past 10-15 years. The requisite BS IV compliant fuel that had to be 50 ppm ultra low sulphur was not mandatory and the BS IV vehicles could manage with BS # compliant fuel as well. However, there is no such backward compatibility in case of BS VI vehicles.

According to some of the reports, many oil refineries are now equipped to produce BS VI compliant fuel and will soon be able to give out samples for testing.

Automotive Electronics & Embedded systems Related Constraints

Apart from the emission-related changes, major tweaking of the electronics of the vehicle will also be required. Automotive OEMs, suppliers and automotive embedded software and hardware providers will have to work together to develop and update ECUs for continuous monitoring of the engine’s increased complexity as well as real-time emission.

How OEMs and Suppliers Are Planning To Tackle the Challenge

The shift to BS VI is a turning point for OEMs and auto part manufacturers. The challenge also presents opportunities for them to enhance each other’s capabilities by joining forces.

Indian suppliers and product engineering companies also have a great chance to move up in the value chain.

The stakeholders have already started to work on this onerous task. It starts with hiring more workforce for each of the vehicle platform followed with the development of the emission control equipment, tweaking ECUs and building state-of-the-art test facilities.

Evidently, the OEMs are not going to do the entire R&D on their own as it will not only increase the cost but also cause delay in their vehicles to get BS VI compliant.

The Automotive Tier-1 suppliers along with automotive embedded solution providers are going to hugely contribute to this process with their expertise in the niche sectors.

When 2020 arrives, we will witness a completely overhauled automotive industry that would have taken a giant leap.

This is first in the series of blogs on Bharat Stage VI; more blogs discussing the impact of the strictest ever emission norm in India will follow.

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