Study on Open Source In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) Software Platforms

Abstract

On ÅF's behalf, this report addresses three open source initiatives for use in automotive infotainment, namely GENIVI, Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) and Automotive Grade Android (AGA). This was carried out in form of a study that presents and analyses the three named open source initiatives with respect to their respective objectives, backers, technology, openness, licensing, maturity, etc. followed by a practical implementation of one selected candidate of these initiatives. As the root cause for all of this was ÅF's willingness of facilitating the identification of a suitable platform for an In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) project and to demonstrate open source as a successful concept for IVI development. For the study, on-line and literature reviews have been essential in our information gathering efforts and have been used extensively throughout the project. With these, a general understanding of each initiative was obtained and many of our initial questions got answered. To obtain further knowledge, interviews were conducted with people having insight and/or experience in IVI and open source development. In the final stage of the study, practical work commenced on the development of an IVI prototype aimed at demonstrating functionality of one investigated initiative. Our main focus was the software, so the open source IVI platform to be used for the prototype was selected prior to the hardware. For this design implementation, we chose GENIVI since it had the largest numbers of backers, an active community, and the most mature and comprehensive solution. Hardware was purchased subsequently and the implementation of the prototype took off. The results of the study have led us to believe that GENIVI possess the greatest chances to be successful and achieve broad adoption from the industry since it has a relatively high level of maturity, activity and large number of backers. Furthermore, the prototype complies with the idea of working as a demonstrator for the GENIVI software and design.