Success Story of Development of a Wireless Charging Solution for a Tier-1 Automotive Customer

About the Customer

Our customer is a US based Tier-1 supplier of connectivity and media solutions for the automotive industry. They have partnered with many global automotive OEMs and contributed to their diverse product lines.

We have a long-standing partnership with the customer, and we have been the technology partners for their other projects as well.

As our customer had a firsthand experience of our expertise in the automotive domain, we were the choice partners for this wireless charging project.
 

Business Challenge

A wireless charging solution works on the principle of ‘Mutual Induction’ between the coils. However, an automotive-grade wireless charging module needs some intelligent feature such as Foreign Object Detection (FOC), NFC detection, etc.

As the customer has the competency in the hardware development, they looked for a technology vendor who can provide the application development support along with in-vehicle networking protocols, diagnostics protocols and Flash Bootloader implementation.

The customer received the following components from the respective vendors:

1. Library Abstraction Layer required for Wireless Charging
2. Near Field Communication (NFC) Stack

The challenge was to develop the Wireless Charging Application on top of the Library and NFC stack.

Following were the requirements from the customers:

• The application layer development with the required functionalities like FOD
• Low-level driver development for the Infineon Micro Controller
• Development of Hardware Abstraction Layer
• Implementation of vehicle diagnostics stacks and in-vehicle networking protocol stacks

Embitel’s Solution

Following the discussions with the hardware team of the customer, our task was clearly cut out.

1. We developed the firmware for a WPC approved automotive grade wireless mobile charger. An algorithm was also developed to manage the charger states based on the signals from BCM, Qi status (wireless charging status) and FOD (Foreign Object Detection).

   Following are the functionalities implemented in the solution:

   • Foreign Object Detection (Metal, RFID card, credit card, etc.)
   • NFC Detection (NFC A, B & F)
   • Capable of differentiating between NFC Passive Card and NFC Mobile Device
   • Charging Status Monitoring
   • DTC (Dynamic Thermal Management) for safety
   • Able to communicate to the vehicle BCM (Body Control Module) over LIN network
   • Reduced Power Mode

   LIN Based Flash Bootloader for firmware update

2. Our ready-to-deploy automotive protocol stacks and other components implemented in the solution:
   • LIN Stack for in-vehicle networking
   • UDS protocol (ISO 14229) software for vehicle diagnostics
   • End of Line testing feature over LIN with UDS diagnostics services
   • Flash Bootloader for ECU-reprogramming capabilities
   • Supported in porting of RFAL stack (for NFC technology detection) written for ST microcontroller into Infineon MCU
   • Developed a CAPL UI for reprogramming the device.
3. Low-Level Drivers and Hardware Abstraction Layer development

Embitel’s Impact

• More than a decade of experience in automotive domain helped us understand the pain-points and provide the right solution.
• Our ready-to-deploy LIN, UDS and Flash Bootloader software reduced the development time by 30%.
• Compliance to ASIL standard through Static analysis, Unit test, DFMEA and system validation
• We identified the issues in the Library and fixed them for the future implementation.

Tools and Technologies

• Infineon MCU
• ST NFC Stack
• Qi Library from Spark connected
• WinIdea debugger, HiTec compiler
• Vector CANoe and Capl Scripting, PLIN
• Understand Tool for static analysis
• Enterprise Architect