The delivery of the NIO ET7 brought the UWB digital key to the air outlet.
The so-called UWB digital key, that is, the use of UWB ultra-wideband technology's precise positioning, high security and other characteristics, so that the smart terminal represented by the smart phone can store, verify and share the digital key of the vehicle in a relatively secure way, and then realize keyless entry and start, personalized vehicle settings and ADAS-related functions, and improve the convenience of the car.
In the automotive industry, the search for UWB digital keys has been going on for some time. However, it was not until July 2021 that the Global Internet of Vehicles Alliance (CCC) defined UWB as the core technology of the third generation of digital keys, that the UWB digital key officially became the "new favorite" of the industry, triggering car companies and technology providers to compete for layout.
Mainstream car companies have taken sides, and the digital key has set off the UWB revolution
As the latest technological trend of digital car keys, UWB digital keys are setting off a wave of car racing in the automotive field. Looking at the market, more and more car companies are beginning to carry digital keys based on UWB technology on new cars.
For example, the BMW iX 2022 M60, which was just launched in January, and the BMW iX 2022 xDrive50, which was launched last November, have used this technology to achieve functions such as insensible access and comfortable welcome. In addition, Audi, Ford and Hyundai's Genesis have also previously said that they will cooperate with Samsung to create a smart car key experience from NFC to UWB for consumers, and some of Samsung's mobile phones will support the realization of these functions.
In China, in addition to the NIO ET7 that has just started delivery, WEILAI ET5 and many other independent car companies related models have also clearly stated that they will be equipped with UWB digital keys, which will help car owners get rid of their dependence on traditional mechanical keys while giving users more personalized car experience, and most of the technical solutions of these car companies come from Kosta.
Image source: Kosta
In fact, digital keys are not a new technology in the automotive industry, such as NFC keys and Bluetooth keys have been used in many mass production vehicles. According to relevant statistics, in 2021, the assembly volume of digital keys for passenger cars in China exceeded 2 million, an increase of 243% year-on-year; the assembly rate was 10.9%, an increase of 7.5 percentage points year-on-year, of which the highest assembly rate was the Bluetooth key.
Why start from BMW and Weilai, in the past two years, mainstream car companies have changed their ways to the UWB digital key? A key driver is the introduction of the CCC Digital Key Version 3.0 specification. In July 2021, the CCC Alliance officially released the CCC3.0 specification, which clearly proposes to combine UWB with BLE (Bluetooth) wireless technology to achieve passive keyless entry and engine start-up through compatible mobile devices, which is equivalent to officially justifying the name of the UWB digital key.
In addition to this, the UWB technology solution has obvious advantages in positioning accuracy, security, power consumption and application expansion compared with NFC and Bluetooth solutions.
The accuracy of measuring distance using UWB technology can reach the highest centimeter level, that is, about 10cm, which is much higher than WiFi, Bluetooth and other solutions. Because UWB technology uses time-of-flight (TOF) ranging, that is, the transmitter will transmit the signal containing the timestamp (STS), and after the receiver receives the signal, it calculates the flight time through the time information contained in the transmission content, and then calculates the flight distance to achieve accurate positioning. And according to the distance between the key and the various anchor points installed inside and outside the car, the system can also calculate the location and area of the key in real time, helping to achieve a variety of car functions.
For example, Kosta's UWB digital key system can realize comfortable welcome, keyless entry and keyless start functions from far to near according to the different distances between the key and the vehicle. When 50 meters away from the car, the system will automatically connect the mobile phone to confirm the identity; when the driver approaches within 10 meters from the car, the lighting system will start in advance to help the owner quickly find the car; when it is about 6 meters away from the vehicle, the interior lighting system will automatically open; when it is 2 meters away from the car, the door will automatically unlock, the seat will automatically adjust to the driver's comfortable position, and the folded rearview mirror will automatically open.
In contrast, NFC car keys often require users to put authorized smartphones close to the door handle to unlock the vehicle, which is not only slightly inferior in terms of use, but also invisibly limits the realization of diversified functions. Bluetooth keys are slightly deficient in positioning accuracy and information security, and in the past few years, there have been many cases of keyless systems being hacked in the automotive industry, many of which are bluetooth solutions.
The UWB solution, due to the addition of security timestamps to the signal, greatly improves the anti-relay attack capability of the UWB digital key. Because the ranging information frame sent by the transmitter can support more than 8000 encrypted timestamps, the corresponding timestamp can only be obtained after matching the roll code at the receiving end, and then unlock the vehicle. In addition, if the signal flies too long, the system will also determine that the car key is not in the valid range, so that the attacker cannot deceive the system.
Because of this, when developing a new generation of digital key solutions, more and more automakers are beginning to gravitate towards UWB technology. Of course, mobile phone manufacturers represented by Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, etc. have launched mobile phone products equipped with UWB technology, which also provides an important impetus for the application of UWB technology in the automotive field.
In a complete UWB digital key solution, a smart terminal equipped with UWB technology is indispensable, and a smartphone is the ideal solution at present. But overall, there are still a few mobile phones on the market that can truly support UWB technology, so Kosta is also developing corresponding solutions to help get rid of the dependence of UWB digital keys on mobile phones.
UWB digital key in The first mass production in China, what is the secret of Kosta?
With the listing of NIO ET7, Kosta has become the earliest UWB digital product in China to achieve mass production before loading vehicles, and supporting tier1 of the leading domestic new energy vehicle company. To know that under this UWB digital key research and development boom, there are not a few companies involved in this field, many of which are international Tier1 factories, why can Kosta stand out so quickly?
The important reason is that Kosta has carried out a series of core technology research and development based on UWB technology and successfully passed the mass production verification. For example, the system-level FOTA capability, as the key to the continuous expansion of the application of the UWB digital key in the future, will become a standard of the system.
Although the application scenario of the UWB digital key at this stage is mainly insensible entry, in the long run, car companies hope to open up the entire smart travel ecology through the UWB digital key and provide more applications for car owners, such as personalized vehicle function settings, AVP functions in the automatic driving scenario and remote control car, vehicle sharing, car payment, etc. Many of these functions will rely on FOTA to achieve.
However, this function is not so easy to achieve, especially how to meet the update specifications of FOTA programs of different OEMs at the same time, and can fully support the main control MCUs and UWB chips of different chip manufacturers, which has multiple technical difficulties. For example, in terms of multi-protocol upgrade and compatibility, considering that UWB chips not only support private protocols that conform to UCI, but also meet the CCC Digital key3.0 protocol and the alliance agreements of major mobile phone manufacturers, this requires UWB chips to have system-level FOTA capabilities.
From the perspective of the digital key's vehicle-side module system architecture, UWB chips are often at the outermost periphery of the architecture, and FOTA needs to span layers of mountains including Tboxes, gateways, MCUs and even Bluetooth chips, which involves quite complex interface types. In addition, due to its particularity, the UWB chip needs to support FOTA in the area also contains its DSP core and application core software, and requires that the pre-paired public and private keys be injected before FOTA for verification.
To this end, Kosta has carried out a large number of research and development based on its rich accumulation in the development of UWB technology. At present, this function has been officially mass-produced with the listing of related models, and Kosta has become the earliest manufacturer in China to realize the FOTA function of UWB digital products.
Costax's FOTA functional components are suitable for more than a dozen OEMs' FOTA remote program update specifications, and can be used by different OEMs to implement FOTA functions that meet their requirements. In terms of chip adaptation, Kosta's FOTA functional components support program refreshes from MCU of many mainstream chip manufacturers such as NXP, Infineon, Renesas, ST, cypress and so on. In the FOTA process, the update function of the UWB chip program will transmit the UWB chip program to the main control MCU through CAN, LIN, UART and other communication methods, and the main control MCU will then reliablely refresh the program of different UWB chips by calling a series of UCI or RCI instruction set interfaces.
Considering that domestic OEMs will follow the CCC 3.0 specification to define their UWB in-vehicle application products, and the protocol standards that currently support this specification have only just begun to popularize in the field of in-vehicle UWB, and even the corresponding development environments of major UWB chip manufacturers and the firmware supporting the CCC protocol standard are still in the optimization and update stage, which are not enough to support large-scale loading and mass production of UWB systems, Kosta has also prospectively developed a proprietary communication protocol for UWB digital key systems. To be used as a supplementary program before the adoption of the CCC3.0 protocol.
The UWB digital key system produced by Kosta can already support this proprietary communication protocol and is compatible with the CCC protocol, so that it can quickly adapt to the wireless communication specifications of different OEMs, ensuring the reliability and safety of UWB communication while helping car companies better optimize the performance of UWB products. For example, the UWB digital key developed for WEILAI has significantly reduced the standby power consumption.
It is based on these technical advantages that Kosta has successfully seized the opportunity in the commercial application of UWB digital car keys. In the future, with the rapid development of related technologies, the demand for UWB technology in the automotive market is expected to continue to grow significantly. According to relevant forecast data, global UWB shipments are expected to reach more than 200 million in 2021 and more than 1.2 billion by 2027, when cars are expected to become the second largest UWB application market after smartphones.
In response to this trend, Kosta is actively developing more innovative UWB solutions for the automotive market. At present, Based on UWB technology, Kosta has developed a set of tailgate kick sensor solutions, which can accurately detect kicking movements to achieve automatic opening of the trunk through highly sensitive UWB radar algorithms. The technical solution has reached the technical state that it can be put into mass production at the end of 2021, and it is expected that mass production will be officially launched within this year.
(Note: The scenes shown in the video and accompanying pictures in this article are only simulated scenes used by Kosta UWB technology on the vehicle, and the appearance and interior of the vehicle involved are only used for illustrative purposes, not applied to the scene of the actual car, and the specific application effect shall prevail)