Telit in the Automotive Segment

by Dominikus Hierl - Managing Director Strategic Accounts and Business Development TELITStory

The Automotive market segments collectively represent the largest growth potential for wireless m2m communication in the near future. About 50 million new cars were sold globally in 2009, whereas only about 5% of them (OEM) were equipped with line-fitted Telematics systems. Upcoming legislation such as the eCall mandate in Europe, resolution 245 of the Brazilian government, and local initiatives in emerging markets such as China will create a huge potential market.

At Telit, we believe that by 2014 the majority of new cars will be equipped with wireless connectivity. As a major player in the global m2m market, Telit has been approached by carmakers and 1st-tier automotive system integrators for dedicated vertical solutions. In response to this demand, we have developed a premier portfolio of automotive-grade GPRS and HSPA modules designed to serve the specific needs of this market.

eCall eCall
Considering the magnitude of death and injury on roads in Europe, the need for an automated method to alert emergency responders of accidents becomes abundantly clear. There were around 41,600 deaths and more than 1.7 million people injured in 2005. It is estimated that an automated method of accident notification has the potential of avoiding some 2,500 fatalities annually in EU-27 when fully deployed. It would also drastically reduce the severity of injuries, bringing significant savings to society in terms of healthcare and other costs while reducing human suffering.

Emergency calls made from vehicles do help with the objective of reducing road deaths and injuries, but drivers often have poor (imprecise) location-awareness, especially on interurban roads or when driving abroad. Additionally, in many situations, car occupants are quite unable to place calls using a normal mobile phone.

The situation is worse for those travelling abroad. A high-and-growing number of vehicles travelling outside their home countries continue raising the need for an automated emergency call system to be built into them. In the EU, there are over 100 million car trips taken annually in which borders are crossed to other EU countries (EU-15). Some 65 % of people feel less protected while abroad and most do not know what number to call in an emergency (in some countries over 60%). Language problems are also prominent and consistently hinder adequate communication.

In more severe accidents, victims may not be able to call because they are either injured, trapped, or do not know the local emergency number to call. And in many cases, particularly in rural areas or late at night, there may be no witnesses who happen to have a mobile phone and a sense of community, or witnesses at all, to call the accident into emergency services. The objective of implementing an in-vehicle emergency call system is to automate the notification of a traffic accident. One major benefit from this is the ability for emergency services to have and use essential data, such as location, transmitted directly from the vehicle to the appropriate responding authority.

The European eCall initiative provides for two types of emergency call placements from a vehicle

Use of the pan European in vehicle emergency call "eCall", which routes the voice call and the data directly to the Public Safety Answering Points (PSAP), using the emergency number 112 .
Use of a "Third Party Support for eCall", abbreviated as TPS-eCall. This is an eCall variant where data is transmitted to a third party service provider or TPSP along with the establishment of a voice call to that TPSP. Upon processing of the call, if the situation is deemed to be an emergency requiring rescue, the TPSP establishes a voice connection with the most appropriate PSAP. The TPSP also forwards to this PSAP, the pertinent data received from the event, which must at a minimum comply with the Minimum Set of Data standard (EN 15722 - intelligent transport systems - eSafety -'eCall' minimum set of data). The TPSP also provides voice communication between the PSAP and vehicle occupants and can set up a conference call, if required by any of the involved parties and allowed by the PSAP.

The eSafety eCall steering committee, which Telit joined back in 2005, has drafted a Memorandum of Understanding for the implementation of interoperable In-Vehicle eCall which has been signed, to date by 14 member States, 3 associated States and more than 80 organizations. A European eCall Implementation Platform (EeIP) has been setup to coordinate efforts among the relevant stakeholders interested in a swift implementation of the pan European eCall.

Auto Automotive Quality
Since quality is one of Telit's core values, we are fully committed to achieving the highest levels of product and process quality possible. Our manufacturing partners ML&S in Greifswald, Germany; Sanmina-SCI in Campinas, Brazil; and BYD in Shenzhen, China have long-term experience in the production of sophisticated automotive products and are qualified according to TS16949 quality standards.

A very important measure to ensure the long-term stability and quality of our products is the Production Part Approval Process (PPAP), a validation test which products have to pass before they can be released for use in the automotive market. The PPAP suite contains a comprehensive set of relevant mechanical and environmental tests specified in ISO 16750 (-1/2/3:2006) and ETSI EN 300 019 (Part 1-1/2/5) designed to guarantee the extremely high quality levels as mandated by the automotive manufacturers. The purpose of this test is to demonstrate the robustness of the product under pre-defined environmental conditions. It has to be shown that the units survive the test suite without irreversible failure and perform according to product specifications.

Telit's full set of technical documents on "Automotive PPAP Validation Tests'" is available on request. In order to comply with regulations for recycling, material data of our automotive products must be described according the International Material Data System (IMDS). As another testament of Telit's commitment to the automotive market, we have taken on the challenge of optimizing all our products for their hands-free audio operation in the car environment.

All Telit automotive products are tested and fully compliant with Specification VDA 1.6 for car hands-free terminals, a specification developed by VDA, the German car manufacturers association in to order ensure that all components used in car phones work in a manner to provide an optimum performance in terms of noise reduction and echo cancelation. Telit is fully engaged in meeting quality targets set by the car manufacturers which specify guidelines for perfect functionality for car components over their lifetime. In order to ensure the maximum level of product quality possible, Telit runs comprehensive end-of-line screening tests including Tri- Temp-Testing and Active Burn-In.

This extra effort is helping us identify and remove products from the production lot which would cause early failures in the field or show out-ofspec performance under extreme temperatures; and also gives us the reliance to guarantee the lowest dead-on-arrival (DOA/zero km) and field failure rates that are required by our customers.

Automotive Products

GE864-AUTOMOTIVE
Ge864 Telit has successfully introduced the GE864-AUTO, the most economical, fully automotive grade GSM/GPRS module in the market. The product is based on our GE864-QUAD product family, which has for years excelled in the market with its ease of integration, low overall solution cost, and high quality.

In addition to the standard feature-set available in all our GPRS products, the GE864-AU TO also boasts:

Extended temperature range
40° C to + 85° C (operational)
40° C to + 90° C (storage)
Audio performance according to specification VDA 1.6
ESD protection level 4
Contact up to +/- 4 kV
Air up to +- 8 kV
Contact antenna pin up to +/- 15 kV
Reliability testing according to the PPAP process
Production according to TS 16949 quality standards
Extended temperature management functionality
Inband Modem support according to ETSI eCall specification

Very useful features for automotive applications which are standard in all our products:

SIM Access Profile
Comprehensive Audio Settings
Digital Audio Interface
Jamming Detection
Firmware Update Over-the-Air

The GE864-AUTO is fully automotive certified according to the Automotive PPAP Validation Test as described above and is the ideal solution for applications where an extended life cycle and automotive grade quality need to meet low cost requirements for high volumes Telematics applications.

Typical applications include:

eCall solutions
Car phone applications
OEM telematics solutions such as door unlock, remote maintenance, vehicle security
Fleet management solutions for commercial applications
Devices for PAYD (pay-as-you-drive) solutions for insurance companies
On-board devices for toll collection
Tracking and control of leased and rental car fleets
Connected Personal Navigation Devices (PNDs)
Track and trace applications such as container and asset-tracking

UC864-E-AUTO
Extended infotainment capabilities are becoming a key selling proposition of premium cars today. Following specifications and requirements from one of the most prominent European premium car manufacturers, Telit has developed the first automotivegrade 3.5G HSDPA module in the global market space. In addition to the basic functionality of our GPRS products, the UC864-AUTO offers full EDGE and HSDPA high-speed data transmission with rates up to 7.2 Mbps enabling a completely new set of functionalities and customer experience in high-end driver information systems. Innovative features currently available only in the latest consumer smartphones become viable for the car driver enabling a whole new level of customer experience. Users can, for example, download locations from search engines into the navigation systems for routing, view satellite pictures of their destination, or stream real-time content like internet radio into the infotainment system.

Telit's UC864-E-AUTO is a member of our connectorized GC864 form factor family meaning that fully backward compatible CDMA and GPRS solutions are available making it possible to customize applications to local market needs. In 2010, Telit will introduce a UMTS 1700 MHz (AWS) variant of this product which will offer high-speed data transmission capability for users of the T-Mobile USA network.

Compared to the commercial product UC864-E, the AU TO version offers:

Landing pads for Rosenberger board-toboard connector
Extended temperature range
- 20° C to + 65° C (operational)
-30° C to + 85°C (restricted operating mode)
-40° C to + 90° C (storage)
Audio performance according to specification VDA 1.6
ESD protection level 4
Contact up to +/- 4 kV
Air up to +- 8 kV
Contact antenna pin up to +/- 15 kV
Reliability testing according to the PPAP process
Production process according to TS 16949 quality standards
SIM access profile
Extended temperature management functionality with high-accuracy temperature sensor

As with all our UMTS products, the UC864-E supports Firmware update Over-the-Air or over USB 2.0 full speed interface.