Harman open sources its SDV connected services platform

Harman, a key player in the automotive industry and a subsidiary of Samsung since 2017, has made a significant announcement that is set to shape the future of connected vehicles. The company has decided to open-source its full connected services platform, paving the way for scalable software-defined vehicle (SDV) designs. This move is expected to have far-reaching implications for car makers, large fleet operators, and the automotive technology sector as a whole.

The platform, now known as the Eclipse Connected Services Platform (ECSP) project, is already in use at a large scale by car manufacturers and fleet operators. It is a crucial component in the development of software-defined vehicles and will be integrated into the Eclipse SDV Working Group. The ECSP is designed to support connected car deployments of up to 100,000 vehicles, offering a wide range of functionalities such as secure vehicle-to-cloud connectivity, data ingestion and routing, device management, and more.

One of the key features of the ECSP is its offboard platform layer, which facilitates data collection and processing for vehicle data. Vehicles communicate using a lightweight MQTT protocol to minimize data overhead and optimize bandwidth usage. The platform leverages the Apache Kafka open-source streaming platform for data processing, ensuring high throughput and reliable connectivity between vehicles and the platform.

Harman has also developed a remote operations application that allows vehicles to control various functions such as doors, windows, lights, and alarms. This application showcases the flexibility of the platform in enabling the creation of new services using the code platform layer, Vehicle Profile, and Device Management. The onboard client, written in C++, is designed to be deployed on Electronic Control Units (ECUs) within vehicles.

Furthermore, Harman has introduced a Linux-based vehicle simulator that can mimic vehicle messages and interactions with cloud applications. This tool is essential for testing and development purposes and is integrated with observability tools like Graylog and Prometheus for debugging. Additionally, a reference iOS/Android application has been created to allow users to visualize the capabilities of the platform.

The open-source nature of the ECSP means that it is accessible to a wide range of developers and organizations within the automotive industry. By leveraging Kubernetes containers and ArgoCD for deployment on Amazon Web Services, the platform offers a one-click framework for automated and scalable deployment of applications and services. This initiative by Harman is aimed at fostering collaboration, accelerating development cycles, ensuring interoperability, and building a more robust and open ecosystem within the automotive technology sector.