Automotive Electronics

Electronics is becoming an increasingly important technology in vehicles. From engine management to steering systems, electronics is replacing many vehicle functions hitherto performed by mechanical and electromechanical systems. Plextek provides a wide range of automotive electronics design services including the design and supply of telematics On Board Units (OBU).

In-vehicle telematics and Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), which essentially involve combining location with vehicle-to-vehicle or vehicle-to-roadside communications, are perhaps the fastest growing branches of automotive electronics. Telematics and ITS applications include location and vehicle identity (including automatic location in emergencies for roadside assistance); route finding/navigation; traffic information and re-routing; collision avoidance; and electronic fee collection.

Road use charging and congestion charging have received a lot of publicity in the media. Technically, this is enabled through telematics and/or ITS of the type mentioned above, and systems are already operational in several countries. The prospect of all vehicles ultimately being equipped with this technology is going to be a major driver in the automotive electronics market.

Plextek has undertaken many automotive electronics design and automotive-related projects. Examples of some of these are given below.

Stolen Vehicle Recovery

Tracker plc

Plextek designed the on-board car unit for Tracker plc, the leading stolen vehicle recovery system in the UK. With over 1 million installed vehicle units, the system is used throughout the country by police forces to locate missing vehicles. Thanks to Plextek’s highly sensitive receiver technology, the system achieves an average range of 20km and 90% UK area coverage with just 60 base sites.

LoJack Inc

Building on its success with Tracker, Plextek was engaged to design and supply base station up-link receivers for the stolen vehicle system operated by LoJack, the US market leader. More recently Plextek has developed, and is now supplying, a new type of OBU for LoJack world-wide.

Motor Sport

Plextek designed for its client, Pi Research, a telemetry link for Formula 1 motor racing. The technology provides a highly robust adaptive radio link at a data-rate of up to 800 kbit/s as well as providing two-way digital voice. Not only does it have to survive the harsh vibration environment found in a modern racing car chassis, but it also has to compensate for the rapidly changing RF environment experienced across the link.

Telematics

Aimed at applications such as fleet management and road use charging, Plextek’s telematics on-board unit (OBU) reference design combines GPS location with GPRS communications. Multiple interface options are available, including CANBus and Bluetooth.

The reference design offers a generic platform; Plextek will customise both the hardware and software to meet the specific needs of customers with high volume requirements.

Plextek’s solutions benefit from the company’s expertise in consumer product design, which is important when the market requires the OBU to be low-cost. A good example is the mass-market handheld games console which combines GPS (for location-based games and advertising), GPRS and Bluetooth (for communications), camera, MP3, and MPEG 4 video.

In-car Electronics

Plextek has developed in-car automotive entertainment subsystems and communications products, including adaptive equalisation for car audio systems and hands-free Bluetooth units which wirelessly link a mobile phone to a car’s audio equipment.