Automotive Ethernet: Enabling the Future of Autonomous Driving

White Papers

Major innovation drivers in the automotive industry span three categories: enhanced safety, a cleaner environment, and improved convenience with connectivity. To achieve these goals, automakers, automotive suppliers, governments, academia, and even nontraditional automotive players such as wireless chipset makers, mobile device makers, and wireless service providers are developing advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), connected car technologies, and autonomous vehicles.

ADAS and autonomous vehicles require a high-bandwidth and low-latency network to connect sensors, cameras, diagnostics, communications, and central artificial intelligence (AI).

The wiring harness is the third heaviest component in a vehicle and the third most costly system. Wiring harness installation represents 50% of labor costs during automobile assembly.

Automotive Ethernet is the emerging solution to these challenges in the same way that Wi-Fi is the foundation for dedicated short-range communications. Ethernet is a well-known, trusted, and ubiquitous solution in traditional local area networking (LAN). The advantages of Ethernet — multipoint connections, higher bandwidth, and low latency — are attractive to automobile manufacturers. However, traditional Ethernet is too noisy and interference-sensitive for use in automobiles. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has new standards and protocols to deliver on the specific needs of the auto industry.