CIE Components in Electronics
The eSync Alliance announces that ZF has joined as its latest member. The eSync Alliance is an industry initiative for driving multi-company Over-the-Air (OTA) update and diagnostic data solutions in the automotive electronics space, potentially saving the industry billions of dollars each year. ZF joins existing Alliance members that include Alpine, Excelfore, Molex and Wipro.
The Alliance is based around the eSync system, a platform of cloud and embedded components originally developed by Excelfore for providing secure transactions with electronic end devices installed in vehicles. It can deliver and update software and firmware over-the-air and can collect diagnostics and telematics data from end devices in the vehicle.
The eSync system helps to avoid increasingly costly and inconvenient vehicle recalls. Software recalls alone estimated to have cost $3 billion in the USA in 2016. It also enables real-time diagnostic information to be remotely retrieved from in-car electronic control units (ECUs) and other devices. By working together in the Alliance, companies benefit from a simplified development environment enabled by a customisable open platform with standardised features and APIs.
Rick Kreifeldt, executive director at the eSync Alliance, said: “ZF is a leading worldwide supplier of automotive components and systems. I’m delighted to welcome them to the eSync Alliance. They provide scale and expertise to help drive the development of a common platform for OTA technology, and its broad adoption across the automotive sector.”
Franck Lesbroussart, head of Advanced Digital Software Development at ZF said: “The eSync Alliance is leading the way in OTA technology and advanced diagnostics, providing a framework for its member companies to benefit from standardised and interoperable OTA components. ZF will take an active part in the Alliance, and by working together with our new partners we can benefit the industry as a whole.”
At the recent CES exhibition, ZF and Excelfore demonstrated how a fleet operator can use the eSync OTA system to gain greater control over an automotive fleet, providing secure mechanisms for continuous improvements in fleet efficiency, managing updates to a fleet of many thousands of vehicles. Fleet managers can review and improve the efficiency and performance of particular vehicle models and sub-models within the fleet and can predict and resolve potential security issues before they become problems.
