Vector India conference bats for automotive R&D, pitches advanced software and hardware tools

Germany’s Vector Informatik foresees high demand for software and hardware tools used in the automotive R&D sector in India through its subsidiary Vector Informatik India.

The company held a two-day Vector India 2016 conference, for the first time in India, in Bangalore on April 5-6. According to Brahmanand Patil, managing director, Vector Informatik India, the company provides OEMs and suppliers of automotive and related industries a professional and open platform of tolls, software components and services for developing embedded systems.

Patil said Vector’s software and hardware tools find usage in testing, calibration and measurement activities in automotive R&D. The parent company, which has a presence in 12 countries including China, India, Japan and Korea, is registering faster growth in India and China, outside its traditional European and North American markets.

Vector solutions are currently used by a number of leading OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers in India including Mercedes-Benz, Tata Motors, Bosch, Continental and Delphi. Even software majors like Infosys and Wipro use them for their automotive R&D programs.

Patil said the India conference was aimed at bringing together automakers, Tier 1 suppliers and software service providers on a common platform to discuss automotive electronics, software and technologies like driver assistance, Ethernet, AUTOSAR and safety.

He is of the opinion that with the Indian government implementing new upgrades in safety and emission control, OEMs are now looking to use more Electronic Control Units (ECUs). For Vector, which specialises in testing and calibrating ECUs fitted in vehicles, this translates into additional business.  

Patil said the company’s software and hardware tools like CANoe, CANalyser, vTESTcenter, vTESTstudio, VTSystem, Datalogger, CANape, VX1000 (calibration hardware), PREEvision and vFlash are popular among automotive engineers in India.

Expert speak

The Vector India 2016 conference saw a number of leading automotive industry representatives make presentations. Nambi Ganesh, AP SW Chief, Electronic Control, Delphi, spoke in detail about the solutions developed by the global supplier for accident-free driving.

Under the theme of ‘Advance Driver Assistance Systems and their application in the Indian scenario’, Ganesh provided a detailed picture about the technologies required to be implemented to increase road safety. The accident rate in the country has been increasing primarily because of faults committed by drivers, he added.

An alarming statistic, as is known, is that India recorded 489,000 accidents in 2014, in which there were 139,000 fatalities and 493,000 injured. He said drivers are responsible for around 79 percent of vehicle accidents and ADAS can prevent road crashes substantially.

Delphi has developed a number of radar and camera-based driver assistance solutions. However, since the Indian government restricts radar-based solutions, Ganesh said OEMs can utilise the camera-based ones.

In 2015, Delphi’s global revenue were $15.2 billion, of which around $1.5 billion was spent on R&D activities in 2015. The company has 14 major global technical centres across the world with 19,000 engineers and scientists.

Later, Alexander Aydt, principal product management engineer - ADAS, Vector Informatik GmbH, reveals how the tools developed by Vector have been helping automotive engineers develop ADAS solutions. He spoke on the vADASdeveloper, which is used for ECU calibration and develops multisensory applications quickly and conveniently. Elaborating about the software’s functionalities, Aydt said that typical sensors like cameras, radar and CAN can be conveniently integrated and graphically linked. Sensor data can also be easily recorded and replayed with highly precise time stamps. The tool is very user friendly because of customised GUI design for test drives.

The conference also saw presentations from Tata Motors, Autoliv India, John Deere and Tata Elxsi. The John Deere presentation was on ‘Electronics Growth in the Off-Road Industry like Agriculture & Constructions’ while an expert from Tata Elxsi spoke on ‘Connected Car Architecture and the New Challenges it poses’. The software engineers representing Autoliv spoke on ‘ECU Diagnostics-Complexity tested by CANoe’.

Vector Informatik India had also displayed some of its hardware and software tools used in the Indian automotive industry during the conference. Tools like CANister configurator CANoe, VT System and Intelligence Diagnostic Device VN8810 were highlighted for their use in testing and calibrating ECUs fitted in various vehicle compartments.