Continental’s Holistic Motion Control Software is the command center to orchestrate all vehicle motion actuators for longitudinal-, lateral-, and vertical- control. Our host independent Software product is a unified, actuator-agnostic interface which is decoupling vehicle driving functions from the vehicle setup during manual-, assisted- and autonomous driving with integrated stability control. In line with the Software Defined Vehicle trend, it is a key enabler for hardware independent Software function and feature innovation over the complete vehicle lifetime.
Holistic Motion Control Software
We enable with our Holistic Motion Control Software a harmonized but individual driving experience that can get easily upgraded over the complete vehicle lifetime following the software-defined vehicle approach. We offer for the customer the pleasure of driving functions while always keeping maximum of safety."
Mile Jokic, Head of Product Line MaS³ (Motion and Safety Software Solutions)
In Service Oriented Architecture, automotive software it will be split in layering and modularization, by offering middleware software and application software as a product and Continental will be able to provide separate solutions and gives the flexibility and the space to OEMs.
As the software-defined vehicle becomes reality, the future is here for Software as a Product that enables functions on demand in the context of vehicle dynamics, but is also the pacemaker that harmonizes User eXperience applications with the actual ride dynamics. THIS creates a truly holistic driving experience and shapes driving emotions."
Mile Jokic, Head of Product Line MaS³ (Motion and Safety Software Solutions)
Transformation
In an age of Software Defined Vehicles (SDV), the automotive world is in a transformation and strives for new market opportunities by the separation of software and hardware business and as a result reducing the complexity, raising the safety and saving costs. In the context of vehicle motion control, a central chassis service approach is the key building block on the way to the Software Defined Vehicle (SDV).
Holistic Motion Control Software addresses this central chassis service approach and with it enables:
- Reduction of duplicate control paths.
- Centralized control signals.
- Integrated Stability control (ESC functions).
- Control allocation with focus on multi-actuatorics enables
- Actuator redundancy by SW concepts
- Individual designed driving experience (DNA) harmonized across all driving use-cases
- Hardware independent software function and feature innovation over the complete vehicle lifetime.
Modularization / Scalability
Scalability and Portability are two mandatory streams to achieve a simplified variant handling. As requested by the market, Holistic Motion Control Software supports a wide variety of actuators and allows the driving functions to be developed generically and actuator independently, which reduces complexity and prevents duplication of effort.
Generic chain of effects
The performance of an HMC system is experienced by the user only at the chain of effects’ end. Having the whole chain in the responsibility of the Continental organization is highly beneficial in terms of reducing application effort (respective cost), raising safety and robustness, and providing desired driver experience. With the full competence in the field of vehicle signals and vehicle actuators as well as vehicle dynamics and kinematics it helps to not only identify but also to close gaps between offered functionalities and customer requirements.
Business model
The separation of software and hardware business and this change is driven by the ability for the consumers to upgrade the vehicle by Software over the air (OTA) for new functionality and features, without them having to buy a new model. By offering application software as a product Continental will be able to provide separate solutions and gives the flexibility and the space to OEMs, creating infinite possibilities of future features for driving experiences.
The information generated by the HMC software can be used as input for UX applications, e.g. dynamic dash, (interior/exterior) light configuration, (engine) sound configuration, seat position, VR interfaces for passengers, … to make the driving experience holistically harmonious, but also individual.
