At 9:00 a.m. on December 21, 2021, the “2021 Huawei Smart Vehicle Solution Ecological Forum” was held. Wan Lei, Vice Chairman of Starflash Alliance, Huawei Fellow, and Head of the Huawei Smart Vehicle Solution BU Policy and Standard Patent Department, introduced the next-generation wireless short-range communication technology “Starflash”.
Wan Lei said that following the general trend of wireless in-vehicle communication, the next-generation wireless short-range communication technology “Starflash” completely surpasses it in terms of low latency, high reliability, precise synchronization, and multiple concurrency.
Established in September 2020, Starflash Alliance is an industry alliance dedicated to globalization. The goal is to promote the innovation and industrial ecology of the next-generation wireless short-range communication technology SparkLink, carry rapidly developing new scenario applications such as smart cars, smart homes, smart terminals, and intelligent manufacturing to meet extreme performance requirements. Up to now, there are 140 member organizations, covering the entire industry chain, including chips, test instruments, modules, terminals, automakers, etc.
According to the official website of the alliance, the members are shown in the image below. The A-share listed companies involved include Gao Hong Co., Ltd., Ronglian Technology, Siweituxin, Ofeiguang, Goeer Co., Ltd., Guoke Wei, Beidou Starcom, Wave Information, Changan Automobile, Dongfeng Motor, Great Wall Motor, BYD, China Mobile, China Telecom, Hikvision, Midea Group, etc.
The Starflash 1.0 empty port system architecture announced by Huawei this time can be applied not only to the automotive field, but also to the smart home/terminal and intelligent manufacturing fields.
In this architecture, the nodes in the system are divided into two types: managed nodes (G nodes) and managed nodes (T nodes). In specific application scenarios, a single G node manages a certain number of T nodes, and the G node connects with these T nodes to complete specific communication functions. A single G node and the T node connected to it together form a communication domain.
Taking the smart car scenario as an example (as shown in the figure below), the cockpit domain controller CDC can be used as a G node, and various in-vehicle devices (such as microphones, speakers, etc.) can be used as T-nodes to jointly complete cockpit entertainment functions. At this point, the CDC forms a communication domain with the vehicle device. When the mobile phone is connected to the CDC, the mobile phone can also be used as a T-node within that communication domain.
Some application scenarios of Starflash technology in the field of intelligent connected vehicles
1. Active vehicle noise reduction
With the development of intelligent connected vehicles and the iterative advancement of technology, consumer requirements for the driving experience are also constantly increasing. The in-vehicle active noise cancellation function can provide the driver and passengers with a safer and more comfortable cockpit experience. In principle, vehicle active noise cancellation neutralizes noise such as engine noise, road noise, wind noise, etc. by emitting reverse acoustic signals from the car's interior speakers, so as to achieve the purpose of eliminating or reducing vehicle interior noise.
II. Vehicle interconnection
With the advancement of the four new automobiles and the advent of technologies such as 5G and the Internet of Things, digitization, networking, and openness of vehicle content, services, and experiences have become a trend, and the current state of closure of vehicle operating systems is gradually being broken. In this context, car-connected products such as Apple CarPlay, Google Android Auto, Baidu Carlife, and Huawei HiCar came into being, making smart terminals (mobile phones) more and more closely connected to cars (cars). Vehicle interconnection projects the contents of the mobile phone onto the car screen via a wired or wireless method, making the vehicle more flexible and expandable, mainly in application scenarios such as navigation, audio, and screen projection interaction.
3. Wireless battery management system
Power batteries are the core components of new energy vehicles and directly affect the key performance of new energy vehicles such as range, vehicle life, and safety. Power batteries account for about 40-50% of the total cost of new energy vehicles, accounting for the largest share of the cost of new energy vehicles. The battery management system (BMS) is an important component for managing and monitoring power batteries. Its main functions include real-time monitoring of physical parameters, estimation of core parameters such as SOC, SOH, SOP, etc., to complete battery charge/discharge management, online diagnosis and early warning, balanced management, and thermal management to achieve highly reliable and long-lasting use of the battery system.
IV. Panoramic Surround View of Operating Vehicles
For operating vehicles such as large buses or trucks, there is a large range of blind spots around the vehicle body. Accidents of crushing pedestrians or non-motor vehicles within the blind area often occur when starting or parking the vehicle. The risk of such accidents is particularly high in densely populated urban areas. Currently, traditional wide-angle rearview mirrors cannot fully cover blind spots around the car body. Using a panoramic surround view system is an effective way to address such safety issues. The panoramic surround view system can transfer images taken by cameras around the car body to the central control platform in real time and splice data from multiple cameras to form a 360-degree surround view image around the car body, thus achieving full coverage of blind spots.
By defining an ultra-short time slot frame structure and an ultra-short wireless frame scheduling cycle (20.833µs), the Starflash system can meet active noise reduction and ultra-low latency applications in industrial manufacturing scenarios; high-performance channel coding, physical-layer HARQ retransmission, and discrete single-subcarrier scheduling technologies can achieve high-reliability transmission, meet the requirements of high-reliability applications above 99.999%, and replace terminal wired connections; multi-domain collaboration technology improves inter-network resource efficiency and reduces interference between networks; minimalism and high security in vehicle information design, etc. High security application requirements.
Starflash Alliance said that the development of the business is endless and will surely drive technology forward. Starting with the Starflash 1.0 system, the future Starflash system will continue to evolve in technical directions such as higher efficiency, lower power consumption, greater bandwidth, and more antennas, and support more functions such as distance measurement and networking, launch an evolutionary system with higher speed, lower cost, lower power consumption, and longer coverage capabilities, and continue to release version 2.0, etc., to better support various scenario applications and play a greater role in the field of wireless short-range applications.
With the rapid development of smart cars, wireless demand for in-vehicle communication continues to emerge, and related applications put forward new requirements for wireless short-range communication in terms of low latency, high reliability, precise synchronization, high concurrency, and information security. As a new generation of wireless short-range communication technology, Starflash technology fully meets the above transmission requirements. Industry demo demonstrations, including active noise cancellation and 360 surround view, also fully demonstrated the technical advantages and industrial value of Starflash technology in the automotive field.
Listed companies related to Starflash Alliance (partial):