RTI Connext DataBus Supports Several Research Projects At Volkswagen AG

SUNNYVALE, Calif.  – Real-Time Innovations (RTI), the world leader in delivering fast, scalable communications software that addresses the challenges of building and integrating real-time operational systems, today announced it has successfully applied RTI Connext DataBus™ to a number of research projects targeting future driver assistance and integrated safety applications at Volkswagen Group Research.

By adopting a data-centric “system-of-systems” approach, the Integrated Driver Assistance and Integrated Safety Department within Volkswagen Group Research could thereby reduce its system integration efforts, thus allowing researchers to focus resources instead on new functionality and capability innovation.

“Think about the data, not how to communicate – has become a main objective for our researchers,” said Dr. Jan Effertz, head of subdepartment for Sensors and Data Fusion at the Department for Integrated Driver Assistance and Security at Volkswagen Group Research. “Our real-time system and communication demands are extremely challenging and we carefully evaluate any new system-wide technology before standardizing. During the last years, the experiences with our partner RTI have been consistently very good. RTI’s technology has become an important component in our research vehicle architectures, advancing our work beyond the limits that we have been facing with traditional automotive bus systems such as the CAN-Bus.”

One of the challenges in research programs is that separate entities and companies use different operating system platforms to independently develop software. By simplifying the interface to a set of defined data structures and quality of service requirements, Volkswagen Group Research was able to easily integrate a variety of different existing software modules into its research vehicle systems in an efficient, sometimes even one-day plug and go assimilation.

For example, when European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) based satellite GPS data needed to be integrated across a system of multiple driver assistance sub-systems, the data only had to be added through one application to the RTI DataBus, and immediately appeared across a range of modular applications and functions that needed to access and use the high resolution data in real-time.

“Driver assistance systems play an important role in further reducing the number of road accidents,” said Dr. Stan Schneider, CEO of Real-Time Innovations, Inc. “RTI is proud to be a small part of the future of driver safety, and to have the value of our technology thoroughly validated by Volkswagen's demanding engineering teams.”