Putting the Future in Motion with Automotive Ethernet

Automobile innovating is accelerating at a rapid pace. Built-in infotainment systems—information and entertainment—demand higher speed wireless connections. Advanced electronic safety and convenience systems, built with cameras, radar, and lidar, are driving exponential data growth. All this data is traveling on wired networks inside next-generation vehicles. Integrating these technologies is one of the biggest challenges facing the Interior division of Continental Aktiengesellschaft (AG) of Hanover, Germany. Information management in and beyond the vehicle is at the very heart of the Interior division. The product portfolio includes: instrument clusters, multifunctional and head-up displays, control units, access control and tire-information systems, radios, infotainment systems, input devices, control panels, climate control units, software, cockpits as well as services and solutions for telematics and Intelligent Transportation Systems.

The Challenge: Dealing with Highspeed

Data Buses

With wide deployment of advanced driver-assistance systems for autonomous vehicle features in the industry, Continental’s Interior division aspires to achieve a failure rate as close to zero as possible for its products. Performing thorough testing that stresses each design and reveals potentially risky problems is a key challenge for Continental. Continental must achieve broad and deep test coverage in a reasonable amount of time, initially in R&D and later during mass production. Stressing systems was relatively simple when working with low-speed buses such as CAN, LIN and MOST. Those legacy buses cannot provide enough speed or bandwidth to handle the data load in next-generation vehicles. Automotive Ethernet is an emerging solution, providing either 100 Mbps or 1,000 Mbps bandwidth. From an engineering perspective, the next-generation automotive challenge lies in troubleshooting high-speed digital signals that are more sensitive and complex than CAN or LIN. Unlike those buses, automotive Ethernet requires rigorous compliance verification with test cases that cover transmitters, receivers and harness/connector assemblies. Many of these tests are too difficult and time consuming to perform manually. All these challenges came together with a project that integrated 1000BASE-T1 chips into an automotive system built around a n-port Ethernet gateway. The gateway needed to be capable of supporting 100BASE-T1, 1000BASE-T1, DDR memory, and USB connectivity. The design team searched for a test solution that would help them meet external and internal expectations: ensure transmitter compliance; satisfy the OEM’s performance requirements; and meet Continental’s inhouse goals for efficiency, effectiveness and innovation.

The Solution: Saving Time with Application-specific Tools 

Continental selected Keysight solutions based on Keysight’s automotive Ethernet leadership. Continental recognized Keysight as the first to deliver an oscilloscope application providing 100BASE-T1 protocol decoding. In addition, Keysight was the first to demonstrate 1000BASE-T1 measurements. A major benefit of the Keysight solution was the compliance test suite, which automated complex tests and procedures for 100 and 1000BASE-T1. To address Continental’s specific needs, Keysight’s Application Engineering Organization customized the solution, integrating a switch matrix to incorporate other test setups and drive multiple device connections in sequence. This also provided the ability to activate external test instruments in environmental test chambers. The automated compliance test solution saved Continental over 30 percent in overall test development time. The solution2 included the following key elements:

• Keysight MSOS104A Infiniium S-Series Mixed-Signal Oscilloscope (1 GHz, four channels)
• Keysight N6467B Automotive Ethernet 100BASE-T1 compliance application
• Keysight N8847A Automotive Ethernet 100BASE-T1 protocol triggering and decode software
• Keysight E6960A 1000BASE-T1 transmitter compliance application

These application-specific elements embody Keysight’s commitment to the latest standards. The result was an automated, repeatable compliance testing solution that helped Continental engineers understand, integrate and deploy these new technologies successfully (Figure 1).