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www.ADandP.media AD&P; ∕ MAY 2017 MOBILITY There is one thing that needs to be taken into account when it comes to auto- mated driving, one thing that is absolutely critical: Trust. As in the trust that the person who takes her hands from the wheel—assuming that there is one—and the trust of the person who is sitting in the passenger's seat—assuming that all of the seats aren't passengers' seats. And to address that, Jacek Spiewla, Mitsubishi Electric Automotive America (MEAA; meaa-mea.com) advanced development engineer, demonstrates, they have developed what they're calling the FLEXConnect.AI in-vehicle infotainment system that features a multi-screen interface. There are three displays built by Mitsubishi that are integrated into an instrument panel: two 12.3-inch 1920 x 720 displays and a 10.2-inch 768 x 1280 capaci- tive touch display in between the two. The first 12.3-inch display is for the driver's information. The central 10.2-inch display is the infotainment unit where swipes and touches allow screens to be changed and options to be selected. Then there is that third screen, which is located directly in front of the front-seat passenger. The system is running on a Snapdragon 820Am processor from Qualcomm. Spiewla notes that this quad-core processor is capable of being able to handle all of the screens, whereas "with traditional systems, you would need three separate processors to run the cluster, the center display and the passenger display." He adds of the approach they're taking: "We're able to reduce both complexity and time to market." For the operating system they're using Android. "One of the nice things about Android," he says, "is that you can customize each screen independently." So what does any of this have to do with trust? One of the things they've done is, as Spiewla puts it, made it possible for the vehicle occupants to be brought "into the loop of what the vehicle is doing." The car goes into automated driving mode. At the same time, the screens can show what the vehicle's sensors are "seeing" in real time. "We have a real-time visualization of the automated driving task based on cameras and radar. It shows lane markings, pedestrians, parked vehicles, cross street traffic, other cars." Then a "threat assessment" is made of the various items categorized. This allows the people to better understand not only what the vehicle is "seeing," but gain the confidence that what they can actually see by looking through the windshield is also being monitored by the car. Another feature of the Snapdragon 820Am processor is a Qualcomm Snapdragon X12 LTE modem that provides up 600 Mbps downlink and 150 Mbps uplink speeds. And Spiewla shows how they're using it in a couple of ways, one that can add a measure of confidence whether or not autonomous driving is involved. MEAA is partnering with AccuWeather. What this facilitates is providing information on what's going to occur along a route. Spiewla programs a route from Atlanta to Memphis that the car "thinks" it is traveling. (We're actually in a static Audi in a garage in Plymouth, Michigan.) At the time there are actual thunderstorms 60 miles ahead on the route, which are displayed on screens of the Mitsubishi Electric Automotive America thinks that by providing information about what an automated driving system is "seeing" can make the occupants feel more confident while being transported. In this setup there are three screens: a vertically oriented 10.2-inch screen in the center and two horizontal 12.3- inch screens, one in front of the driver and one for the passenger. Information from the sensor array can be displayed for the driver and passenger in real time. "This isn't going to be technology just for luxury cars. It will be in trim lines for every vehicle." 25