STMicroelectronics is helping the automotive industry deliver safer, greener, and smarter vehicles to market more quickly and cost effectively with new tools that assist the development of electronic control units (ECUs), the ‘mini-computers’ that manage the numerous electronic systems in today’s vehicles. Leveraging their extensive experience and knowledge of the demanding automotive market, STMicroelectronics AutoDevKit™ ecosystem introduces a new and efficient toolset for creating working prototypes, replacing traditional artisan approaches and supporting standardization and design reuse. Available for free, the AutoDevKitlibrary is a software environment that lets users select the microcontrollers and functional boards from STMicroelectronics wide automotive portfolio to easily prototype an automotive solution.
The automotive market is going through dramatic change, transitioning from familiar technologies such as ordinary bulbs, mechanical systems, and hydraulics to lightweight, intelligent replacements such as LEDs and brushless motors, amid the general trend toward electrification and digitalization. New vehicles can contain over 100 ECUs and, as their complexity is always increasing, design teams need to accelerate development to keep pace.
STMicroelectronics have based AutoDevKit on 5 guiding principles, ease of prototyping, reuse of code and hardware, maximum design flexibility, reduce time-to-market and simplified integration of multiple systems.
Initially designed for Automotive applications the AutoDevKit platform is also finding uses in Industrial equipment, Robotics and Autonomous systems which share similar application and reliability demands. The unique feature of the AutoDevKit development ecosystem is the common platform, so once learned, it can be used for all functional boards without having to learn new software, new GUI or a new piece of hardware every time. It also benefits from being an “open” system which allows new software and plugins to be integrated from any source, at hardware level it even allows other third-party modules to be connected giving design teams maximum flexibility.
After choosing the preferred AutoDevKit components, users are guided to connect the boards, generate code, compile and download firmware, without forgetting prototype testing and debugging. A fundamental aspect of the AutoDevKit ecosystem is to offer easy-to-use application-program interfaces (API) for communication and control for each of the functional boards supported.
AutoDevKit enables design teams to quickly build a complete system out of available functional component blocks, the ecosystem comprises of 3 elements.
AEK Discovery and Functional Boards
Designed for use with STMicroelectronics AEK MCU discovery boards, Functional boards implement a specific function including motor control, LED lighting, power management, audio, connectivity and communication such as USB.
With AutoDevKit any combination of functional boards including duplicates, can be connected simultaneously with a single MCU discovery board thus generating a quick system solution prototype assembly.
For each functional board, a dedicated set of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) control the available features and facilitate the communication with the MCU.
Third-party functional boards can be added in the application building process to enrich the system solution including, for example, laser range scanning sensors (e.g. LIDAR) or Hall effect sensors.
AEKD System Solution Demonstrators
The AEKD kits are a set of pre-assembled demonstrator platforms implementing an automotive system solution.
These hardware assemblies include the non-electronic parts, such as car-like components and loads, used to enrich the prototype and help designers to get closer to the real application enabling a more comprehensive evaluation of the complete solution.
The kits can be ordered using a single code providing an easy, flexible means to build and program a system solution prototype for specific automotive applications.
STSW Embedded Software
To complete the ecosystem, STMicroelectronics supply the evaluation tool software for both single boards and system solution prototypes.
This includes both software and firmware components for setting up the application prototype.
SPC5-Studio is an Eclipse based IDE and includes all the libraries, API’s and a powerful pinmap editor improving design accuracy.
Click on the video below for an overview of how the AutoDevKit SPC5-Studio helps speed up the prototyping process.
STMicroelectronics also provide support for AutoDevKit via an App available on iOS App Store and Android Google Play store, just enter “AutoDevKit Explorer” in the search or click on the links below to download.
STMicroelectronics are adding to the list of available boards and software tools as they continue to develop the AutoDevKit ecosystem. Contact Anglia to stay up to date with the latest information.
Click here to view the latest range of AutoDevKit boards
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Free samples are subject to availability.
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