Under the background of software-defined cars, automobiles have become another important intelligent mobile terminal after mobile phones, and a number of mobile phone industry giants and software suppliers have all entered the intelligent car track and ushered in new performance growth points.
For example, Zhongke Chuangda, as one of the few operating system technology companies at home and abroad that can provide comprehensive technical coverage from the chip layer, system layer, application layer to the cloud, began to vigorously expand the intelligent car market in 2013, and has launched a series of intelligent cockpit platform products and software solutions.
At present, Zhongke Chuangda has made outstanding achievements in the field of intelligent vehicles. According to the financial report of the first three quarters of 2021, its intelligent networked vehicle business has become a highlight of the company's overall performance growth, and the operating income of the business in the first three quarters of 2021 increased by more than 60% year-on-year to 781 million yuan, and there have been more than 200 automotive customers in the world, including Volkswagen, General Motors, Toyota, SAIC, GAC, FAW and other head car manufacturers.
However, the ambition of Zhongke Chuangda is far more than that. Wu Wenguang, EXECUTIVE PRESIDENT of the company, said: "Zhongke Chuangda is further deploying in the fields of intelligent assisted driving/autonomous driving and multi-domain integration, with the goal of becoming an enabler of the transformation of the global intelligent automobile industry.
Wu Wenguang, CEO of Zhongke Chuangda
This can also be seen in the new products recently released by Zhongke Chuangda. At the recent CES 2022 exhibition, Zhongke Chuangda released the intelligent cockpit solution and converged parking technology and solution based on the Qualcomm 8295 platform, in addition to its wholly-owned subsidiary Rightware also launched the integrated HMI tool chain Kanzi One, providing strong support for the diversified intelligent development of automobiles.
First, three highlights of the products unveiled at the CES exhibition
With the continuous improvement of the level of automobile intelligence and networking, the automobile cockpit has gradually developed into an intelligent cockpit with human-computer interaction as the core and multi-screen linkage. Wu Wenguang said: Running multiple in-vehicle operating systems on a powerful chip and driving multiple displays at the same time has become the main development trend of automotive intelligence.
Zhongke Chuangda exhibits at CES2022: Smart Vehicle Products, Technologies and Solutions
At CES 2022, Zhongke Chuangda launched a smart cockpit solution based on Qualcomm's fourth-generation digital cockpit platform (Qualcomm SA8295 chip). The solution can not only realize the intelligent cockpit functions of one core and multiple screens, including digital instruments, central control entertainment, co-pilot entertainment, dual rear seat entertainment, streaming media rearview mirrors, HUDs, etc., but also realize the integration of low-speed assisted driving and intelligent cockpit domain controllers.
According to the data, Qualcomm SA8295 chip uses a 5nm process process, which has outstanding performance in TERMSCR and GPU graphics image processing, but whether the chip can exert the greatest effect depends on whether the software supplier has a very strong software adaptation capability. This is precisely one of the biggest core competitive advantages of Zhongke Chuangda.
In addition, the intelligent cockpit solution of Zhongke Chuangda also integrates multi-screen linkage technology for full-screen scenes, one-stop projection solution (the first time in the industry), and 3D design of cinematic visual effects (derived from Kanzi One launched by Rightware, a subsidiary of Zhongke Chuangda), which can provide a more diversified and intelligent immersive human-computer interaction experience.
It is understood that Kanzi One is the world's leading automotive user interface design technology supplier Rightware's independent intellectual property rights products, but also the industry's first integrated HMI toolchain built for smart cockpits.
KANZI One integrates all the tools needed for modern HMI development, including the core Kanzi frameworks – Kanzi Studio and Kanzi Engine – as well as a feature pack of Kanzi Connect, Kanzi Maps, Kanzi Particles, Kanzi Autostereoscopy and Kanzi VR, and can be deeply integrated with Android systems to deliver industry-leading 3D design effects.
Based on Kanzi One, automakers and developers can choose their own programming tools and languages, through a concise development process, can easily create the ultimate user interface, so as to create a more advanced intelligent cockpit product solution.
HMI renderings designed using KanziOne
In addition, it should be specially mentioned that among the many intelligent and connected vehicle products and solutions displayed by Zhongke Chuangda at the CES exhibition, another highlight of the product is the integration of intelligent parking technology and solutions. Different from the existing parking solutions in the industry, Zhongke Chuangda integrates intelligent parking based on on-vehicle OS technology, which opens up the two major technical domains of intelligent cockpit and automatic driving, which can fully reuse the redundant computing power of the cockpit domain, thereby greatly reducing the development cost of the parking system.
At the same time, Zhongke Chuangda also integrates the traditional ultrasonic radar ranging algorithm with AI intelligent vision technology, which not only adapts to richer parking scenarios, but also greatly improves the judgment and processing capabilities of the solution in the complex parking environment. What's even cooler is that Zhongke Chuangda's AVM (Panoramic Surround View System) and APA (Automatic Parking System) interface of intelligent parking is based on Kanzi One, and its outstanding 3D rendering effect can present users with exquisite and immersive parking scenes.
In addition, Zhongke Chuangda can also provide full-chain products, technologies and solutions from AVM (Panoramic Surround View System), APA (Automatic Parking), RPA (Remote Control Parking), HPA (Memory Parking) to AVP (Unmanned Valet Parking).
"The core advantage of Zhongke Chuangda is middleware, providing a software platform based on hardware virtualization, and has deep experience accumulation for perception algorithms and deep learning algorithms." Wu Wenguang said.
At present, the software algorithm of Zhongke Chuangda can be adapted to the mainstream chip platforms in the market such as Qualcomm, NVIDIA, NXP, TI and so on. This means that Zhongke Chuangda's converged intelligent parking solution can be adapted to the current mainstream chip platform to help customers quickly and efficiently achieve mass production of parking products.
Second, the road from the cockpit to the advanced driving of intelligent driving
The Intelligent Connected Vehicle Operating System is the software infrastructure of the "software-defined car" that hosts all software, applications, services, and business model innovations.
For example, the intelligent cockpit solution created by Zhongke Chuangda is based on the intelligent car operating system, which integrates the information and connects the instruments, central control, audio, and Internet of Vehicles in the intelligent cockpit to achieve a unified user experience.
In the past few years, Zhongke Chuangda has acquired Beijing Epxinsi Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. (in-car entertainment system), Beijing Huichi Technology Co., Ltd. (in-car entertainment system), FinlandRightware company (intelligent car user interface design technology), Bulgarian MMSolutions (image vision technology) and other enterprises, and constantly improve its layout in the field of intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving.
With the continuous improvement of The layout of Zhongke Chuangda in the field of intelligent and connected vehicles, its performance in related fields has also continued to rise. According to the financial report, the revenue of Zhongke Chuangda's intelligent networked vehicle sector increased from 46.2 million yuan in 2016 to 770 million yuan in 2020, with a compound annual growth rate of up to 102%, and the operating income of the sector in the first three quarters of 2021 has reached 781 million yuan, which is more than the revenue of the whole year of 2020.
Zhongke Chuangda intelligent exhibition hall
It is undeniable that Zhongke Chuangda has occupied a leading position in the field of intelligent cockpit. Next, Zhongke Chuangda will take the intelligent cockpit domain as the cornerstone to vigorously expand the field of intelligent driving and provide a series of software solutions for cross-domain integration.
In fact, since 2020, Zhongke Chuangda has reached in-depth cooperation with didi, GAC and other enterprises in the field of intelligent driving. In 2021, Zhongke Chuangda acquired 51.48% of the equity of Fuyihang, once again making in-depth layout to the field of intelligent auxiliary driving.
"Under the background of cross-domain integration of intelligent networked vehicles, the demand for in-vehicle software in OEMs is increasing." Wu Wenguang believes that the underlying software and middleware software will gradually converge, and the demand for cross-domain integration is increasing, and eventually a unified and cross-domain integration software integration program will be formed.
Based on this, Zhongke Chuangda is opening up the underlying software of multi-domain integration such as intelligent driving domain and intelligent cockpit domain, and providing complete, open and scalable solutions in the form of "vehicle OS".
Wu Wenguang said that on the basis of doing a good job in the vehicle OS, Zhongke Chuangda will launch a unique middleware solution specifically for the intelligent driving domain. The advantage of this is that it can not only open up with other domains of the vehicle, but also meet some requirements of the intelligent driving domain itself.
Third, seize the opportunity of supply chain restructuring
Software-defined cars have become the main theme of the current automotive industry, and in the past few years, car companies such as Volkswagen, BMW, and SAIC, as well as Tier1 giants such as Bosch and Continental, have increased their investment in software.
Wu Wenguang said: "Under the background of software-defined automobiles, the supply chain relationship of the entire automotive industry has become a mesh structure, whether it is an oem or Tier1, everyone is a node in the mesh structure and needs symbiosis and integration. ”
On the one hand, under the general trend of automobile electrification, intelligence, and networking, the barriers to vehicle manufacturing have weakened, and the value of software in automobiles has gradually become prominent, including Apple, Huawei, Xiaomi and other mobile phone giants have entered the intelligent car track, thus breaking the traditional inherent organizational form.
On the other hand, with the gradual deepening of software-defined automobiles, the separation of software and hardware has become an important trend, and the "zero" relationship and business boundaries of the automotive industry have undergone new changes. Wu Wenguang said: "The ecological reconstruction of the new intelligent car requires huge investment, which is difficult to complete by one enterprise alone, and requires the joint collaborative innovation of industrial chain enterprises. ”
It is undeniable that in the intelligent networked car, chips, operating systems (OS), middleware, data, etc. have become the core links, and major auto giants are deploying the research and development of these core technologies.
Automakers, including Daimler, believe that in the future intelligent car race, it is crucial to develop software platforms with independent intellectual property rights. However, in addition to accelerating the independent development of software, most automakers will choose software and chip cooperative manufacturers that already have mature technologies as core partners.
Zhongke Chuangda has been deeply involved in the automotive software market for nearly ten years, and has accumulated rich product and technical experience in intelligent car operating systems, 3D engines, machine vision, voice and audio, and automated testing. At the same time, the company has also been adhering to the globalization strategy, with an international technical team of more than 10,000 people in more than 30 cities in the world, and has established multi-channel and multi-faceted cooperative relations with partners in multiple fields in the industry.
Next, Zhongke Chuangda will continue to adhere to the development strategy of "technology-based ecology is king", while strengthening its own technical strength, working with ecological partners to help more customers develop high-quality products, shorten the market cycle of products, and "empower" the transformation of the intelligent automobile industry.
"Gaogong Intelligent Automobile Research Institute" believes that with the acceleration of the era of "software-defined cars", manufacturers who master the operating system (OS) and core middleware will gradually become more competitive. In this way, Zhongke Chuangda, which takes the operating system as the core business, is ready to accumulate in the "golden age" of intelligent networked vehicles.