AI in driver’s seat for real-time, in-vehicle experience

Artificial intelligence (AI) and software-defined vehicle (SDV) supplier Sonatus has launched a platform to help original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) use AI to transform driving and ownership experiences with greater efficiency and lower costs.

The firm believes its Sonatus AI Director will be “game-changing”, enabling OEMs to deploy AI at the vehicle edge to shrink roll-out cycles from months to days, while lowering costs and enabling smarter, safer driving.

Putting the launch into context, Sonatus noted that automotive AI is growing rapidly, citing a market study from Precedence Research, Automotive artificial intelligence (AI) market size and forecast 2025 to 2034, showing that the sector is projected to reach a market size of $46bn annually by 2034, with in-vehicle edge AI software and services being be an increasingly important component of the industry.

The company says OEMs are always seeking innovative ways to deliver customer value across passenger and commercial vehicles throughout their lifecycle. It added that in-vehicle edge AI, fuelled by real-time and contextual vehicle data, allows OEMs to unlock features and capabilities that enable adaptive and personalised driving experiences, proactive maintenance, improved efficiency and optimal vehicle performance.

“The evolving technology and competitive landscape are compelling automakers to transition towards software-defined vehicles and make greater use of AI to improve their business,” said Alex Oyler, consulting director at global automotive research firm SBD Automotive. “Innovative tools … can expand the use of in-vehicle AI to deliver adaptive, intelligent and compelling driving experiences that ensure OEMs stay ahead of global competition.”

Sonatus says successful in-vehicle edge AI is enabled by the capabilities of software-defined vehicles based on building blocks covering everything from the cloud to the vehicle edge, including on-demand access to precise vehicle data. The latter is regarded as a critical foundational element.

To meet the market demand and address technology challenges, Sonatus AI Director has been designed to allow OEMs and suppliers to gain an end-to-end toolchain for model training, validation, optimisation and deployment, while integrating with vehicle data, executing models in isolated environments and providing cloud-based remote monitoring of model performance.

Among the key challenges facing the automotive industry in deploying in-vehicle edge AI that AI Director sets out to solve includes providing a consistent framework that enables OEMs to deploy models from different suppliers with a single platform and across vehicle models. It also looks to allow Tier 1 suppliers to optimise the systems they deliver to OEMs and more easily take advantage of AI across hardware and software technologies, and allow AI model suppliers to gain access to input data from across different subsystems while protecting the intellectual property of their models.

Acting as a toolchain and in-vehicle runtime environment, AI Director is claimed to lower the barriers to edge AI adoption and innovation compared with current alternative approaches using disparate machine learning development tools, reducing efforts from months to weeks or days.

Instead of relying solely on cloud-based models, AI Director is also built to let vehicle manufacturers run AI directly in the vehicle to provide a faster response, reduce data upload costs, preserve data and algorithm privacy, and ultimately ensure continuity across intermittent connectivity. AI Director supports the management and deployment of a range of models spanning many vehicle subsystems with potential benefits including cost, performance, security and efficiency improvements.

Also, Sonatus insisted that rather than waiting for next-generation ECU hardware, OEMs could use AI Director to maximise the value of their existing compute resources, accelerating time to market while also providing a path to scale AI performance as new silicon becomes available. The platform supports a range of model types, including physics- and neural network-based models, as well as small and large language models, catering to diverse vehicle use cases.

“Artificial intelligence is creating opportunities for new ideas that were never before possible in vehicles,” said Jeff Chou, CEO and co-founder of Sonatus. “With Sonatus AI Director, we are empowering OEMs to deploy AI algorithms of all types into vehicles easily and efficiently, unlocking new categories and opening up an ecosystem of innovation that connects cloud, silicon, Tier 1 suppliers and AI model developers.”

Initial launch partners for Sonatus AI Director include automotive silicon provider NXP; compute IP firm Arm; and cloud service provider Amazon Web Services. Also on board are subsystem expert model providers Compredict, Qnovo, Smart Eye and VicOne.