**Germany**: The GENIAL! project unites industry partners to enhance collaboration in automotive microelectronics, creating a roadmap for future innovations and offering open-source tools to streamline development processes and reduce time-to-market for new automotive components.
The automotive industry is currently navigating a landscape marked by significant technological challenges, particularly in the realm of developing new and innovative features and services. Manufacturers are tasked with the complex responsibility of anticipating future advancements in microelectronics, sensors, and semiconductor technologies as they define their products. Concurrently, suppliers and semiconductor manufacturers require early insights into the emerging needs for upcoming features to ensure confident investment in technology development.
To address these challenges, the “GENIAL!” project has been launched, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in Germany. This collaborative initiative brings together eleven partners aiming to enhance the effectiveness of cooperation within the automotive sector and to better prepare for future advancements. The project concentrates on optimising collaboration between automotive manufacturers and their component and technology suppliers, facilitating faster innovation across the automotive value chain.
A significant outcome of the GENIAL! project is the prototypical automotive microelectronics roadmap. This strategic framework is designed to identify future market needs, use cases, system models, and technical specifications within the automotive microelectronics landscape. By establishing a collective understanding of the microelectronics requirements for future innovative vehicles, the roadmap helps all stakeholders—including market participants, research institutions, and policymakers—manage their investments and research activities more effectively. This, in turn, is expected to reduce development times and lead to the quicker realisation of new automotive components.
The project’s approach is rooted in model-based system development, employing the Systems Modeling Language (SysML), which has been upgraded to SysML v2. This method is bolstered by the AGILA database, a centralised repository that facilitates the documentation of essential information while ensuring consistency checks and version control. Additionally, the IRIS tool, developed within the project, fosters collaborative modelling, exploration, planning, and evaluation of alternative solutions, taking into account not only technical data but also crucial non-technical factors such as supply security.
As part of their commitment to enhancing collaboration within the industry, the participants will make the AGILA and IRIS tools available as open-source solutions, encouraging their widespread adoption among stakeholders interested in developing and maintaining roadmaps.
Moreover, the project has introduced the innovation modelling methodology known as IMoG (Innovation Modelling Grid), which delineates the activities, roles, and processes involved in collaboratively developing roadmaps. This includes everything from the initial comparisons of models in both the problem and solution spaces to the practical application of the AGILA and IRIS tools. The complete documentation of this methodology, along with several training videos, is offered for free download, ensuring accessibility for interested parties.
The concerted efforts of the GENIAL! project reflect a proactive approach to the ongoing technological evolution within the automotive sector, aimed at fostering collaboration and streamlining innovation processes essential for the industry’s future.
Source: Noah Wire Services
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