Unmanned Systems Technology 036

12 Platform one NXP has doubled the performance of its Blue Box development systems for high- performance computing architectures in autonomous systems (writes Nick Flaherty). Using the 16-core LX2160A Layerscape embedded processor along with a machine learning processor from Kalray provides ASIL-D levels of functional safety for Blue Box 3.0. The Blue Box has been a stalwart of development for current autonomous systems. This marks a move from domain gateways to zonal gateways and a central controller that requires a high- performance central processor. “A domain controller is defined by the functionality, powertrain, radar, camera and so on,” said Arnaud Van Den Bossche, director at NXP Automotive Processing. “The zonal gateway is physical and geographical – for example taking data from the front-left camera, radar, tyre pressure and motor. “This gateway aggregates the data and sends it to the central controller. You can do some pre-processing for the radar, for example, so you can offload the computation to the gateway, but that has implications for security and safety.” The Layerscape processor’s 16 cores are ARM Cortex A72 processor cores, and it supports radar, vision and Lidar signal paths for advanced sensor fusion applications. It also provides expansion options for accelerating AI and machine learning with the Kalray Coolidge massively parallel processor array, which has 160 cores that can be targeted for perception, prediction, pathfinding capabilities and emerging connected services. The BlueBox 3.0 also integrates the NXP S32G processor to provide secure vehicle networking and reliable safety processing and checking for system- level ASIL-D conformance. This supports virtualisation software from Green Hills Software to allow different applications to run safely on the Layerscape. This is driving the performance of the Blue Box, which includes six PCIe expansion slots to add additional custom sensors or processing, and eight 10 Gbit/s Ethernet connections to link to zonal gateways. The PCIe interface will be used to add the next generation of Kalray AI processor as a separate card in the BlueBox later this year. The Kalray array provides a mix of fixed- and floating-point processing. “When looking at a prediction that’s been done in fixed point, because of the lack of maturity in algorithms for path planning and free space detection we need floating point,” said Van Den Bossche. “No-one has the same requirement in fixed- and floating-point, so we need the flexibility, and that part is not mature at all. “Then, if we are looking at the central controller with the connectivity and intrusion detection for example, that’s more floating-point, and we see more of this coming into cars. We need to be sure we have freedom from interference between the different domains, and Coolidge allows us to have a small number of cores dedicated to one domain, so we have a good way to split the system and provide the domain separation in the accelerator,” he said. The EIQ development environment abstracts the API layer for all three chips, and includes the machine learning capability, again abstracted from the Kalray hardware. The key is how the vehicle performs overall. “Object recognition and sensor fusion are well-understood, but when you look at how the car will behave as a result – the force on the braking system, the acceleration – you need a fairly good behaviour model of the car. That’s where we see the car OEMs focusing,” Van Den Bossche said. “That means the autonomous vehicle has to behave like a premium car. All these algorithms are very complex, but they have not yet been fully addressed. That is how the OEMs will differentiate themselves, and it’s really a software rather than a hardware problem. “That’s why it’s very important on the hardware to provide the right flexibility in how you programme the different algorithms. The Blue Box is not just hardware, it allows developers to port their algorithms.” Software gets in the zone Driverless cars February/March 2021 | Unmanned Systems Technology The latest version of the Blue Box development system entails a shift from domain gateways to zonal ones