Automotive Grade Linux showcases open source technology and software defined vehicle at CES 2023

Automotive Grade Linux (AGL), a cross-industry effort developing an open-source platform for all connected car technologies, will demonstrate infotainment and instrument cluster technology developed collaboratively by the AGL community at CES 2023. Additional open source automotive demos include Amazon Web Services (AWS), EPAM, Igalia, Panasonic, Renesas and VNC Automotive.

“We have been working on software defined vehicles for the past eight years, bringing together automakers, suppliers and tech companies to collaborate and develop open source software for the entire industry,” said Dan Cauchy, Executive Director of Automotive Grade Linux at the Linux Foundation. “The AGL platform continues to mature as we integrate newer technologies including Flutter, VirtIO for virtualization and Linux containers, and we look forward to demonstrating the latest updates at CES 2023.”

AGL is an open source project hosted at the Linux Foundation that is changing the way automotive manufacturers build software.  More than 150 members, including 10 automakers, are working together to develop a common platform that can serve as the de facto industry standard for infotainment, telematics, and instrument cluster applications. Sharing an open platform allows for code reuse and a more efficient development process as developers and suppliers can build once and have a product work for multiple automakers.

The AGL Unified Code Base (UCB) platform includes an operating system, middleware and application framework, and provides 70-80% of the starting point for a production project. Automakers and suppliers customize the other 20-30% of the platform with features, services and branding to meet their product and customer needs.

AGL is currently being used in production and is on the road today in Toyota and Lexus vehicles globally as well as the Subaru Outback and Legacy.

AGL Demo Showcase

• Instrument Cluster: Infotainment and Instrument Cluster applications using container technology to run on a single microprocessor. Using Linux containers, different versions of the infotainment systems can be deployed.
• Infotainment: demonstrates the new AGL Flutter based reference applications running the latest Nifty Needlefish code release as well as a Flutter based Instrument Cluster. 
• Steering wheel: A production steering wheel from Suzuki is incorporated into the infotainment demo connected via CAN. Commands available from the steering wheel include media functions and cruise control.
• Connectivity: In-vehicle communication utilizes the latest W3C Vehicle Signal Specification (VSS).
• Hardware: All demos utilize the latest AGL Reference Hardware.

Demos by AGL members:

• AWS: Connected Vehicles Made Easy with AWS and AGL – Stop by for a test drive and explore how easy and cost-effective it is for automakers to collect, transform, and transfer vehicle data to the cloud in near-real time while allowing deployment and management of vehicle software and configuration remotely and at scale using AWS IoT FleetWise and AGL.
• EPAM: Software Defined Vehicle Building Blocks – Check out EPAM’s building blocks for the Software Defined Vehicle, which include virtualization for digital cockpit and central compute unit; cloud-to-vehicle services deployment and orchestration, including AGL application updates; AAOS integration with AGL-based systems; mixed-safety system based on open source software.
• Igalia: Web UI on AGL Demo Platform – Explore the HTML-only interface of the AGL demo platform running on different of the supported hardware platforms.
• Panasonic Automotive: Achieving Software Defined Vehicle with AGL through VirtIO – Software Defined Vehicle has been a hot topic in the automotive world, enabling OEMs/Tier1 to develop software decoupled from the limitations of hardware. Panasonic Automotive will present how the standard device virtualization framework VirtIO is empowering AGL to realize “Software Defined Vehicle” with a series of demonstrations, relating cloud-native environment parity and flexible UI/UX design across multiple displays enabled by VirtIO.
• Renesas: Connected Car Platform Solution for AGL — Connected car platform solution using R-Car series environment for AGL. R-Car supports VSS interface and isolated OSS system for cybersecurity and to protect the gateway system.
• VNC Automotive: Connectivity Enriched Journeys – Experience the future of in-vehicle infotainment and see how our tech can empower all vehicle occupants, making journeys more entertaining, productive and safer than ever.