RTI Accelerates Autonomous and Electric Vehicle Innovation with First Data-Centric Software Framework with Functional Safety Certification

Real-Time Innovations (RTI), the largest software framework company for autonomous systems, today announced at the RTI Automotive Forum that foundational components of RTI Connext Drive® are now certified to ISO 26262 ASIL D. This is the most stringent Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL) for road vehicles. Connext Drive is already proven-in-use as the underlying software framework for multiple production vehicle models on the road today, leading to more than 64% compound annual revenue growth (CAGR) over the last three years. ASIL D certification provides OEMs with even more assurance of Connext Drive suitability for safety-critical applications, including autonomous driving and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). RTI will be exhibiting Connext Drive at CES 2022 in Las Vegas at booth #7055 in the West Hall.

Software-defined capabilities are a fundamental differentiator in autonomous and electric vehicles. To remain competitive, OEMs must continually innovate, and software development agility is essential. However, it can be stymied by automotive software’s exploding volume and complexity. The need for safety assurance further compounds this challenge.

Connext Drive accelerates innovation by allowing OEMs to evolve their autonomy applications quickly and cost effectively. Unlike legacy Electrical/Electronic (E/E) architectural approaches designed for static vehicle software, Connext Drive employs an agile data-centric integration paradigm. It allows architects to decompose systems software into fine-grained and loosely-coupled “microservices.” These services only need knowledge of the types of data they exchange, not of the implementation or even presence of any other service. Thus, developers can add and update services to introduce new capabilities without having to modify or re-certify any other software components. Connext Drive is the first data-centric software framework certified to ASIL D.

Connext Drive is part of an expansive automotive ecosystem and is compliant with the Data Distribution Service (DDS)™ standard. It is integrated with the majority of automotive operating systems, technologies and platforms—including AUTOSAR and ROS 2—providing architects and system engineers with maximum flexibility in developing their full stack solution. With today’s announcement, Connext Drive now supports QNX OS for Safety to ISO 26262 ASIL D, the industry-leading safe RTOS, offering a reliable and low-risk path to safe, production-grade vehicles.

“The release of safety certification in Connext Drive further validates the commitment from RTI to help overcome the architectural limitations currently facing the automotive industry, and ultimately impeding the transition to next-generation vehicles,” said Pedro Lopez Estepa, Market Development Director, Automotive at RTI. “Together with our partner ecosystem, we are leading the automotive software-defined architecture. The new ASIL-D safety solution is another pivotal advancement in our successful automotive journey. We are proud to take these positive steps forward and look forward to working with our customers to make the industry safer, more reliable and cost-effective.”

For more information on Connext Drive and a full list of new features, please visit: www.rti.com/drive.

Registration is now open for CES 2022. Secure a spot to meet with one of RTI’s automotive experts here.

About Connext Drive
Connext Drive is an automotive-grade software framework for rapidly building and evolving autonomous vehicle software. Its libraries and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) allow developers to write loosely-coupled software modules that communicate seamlessly regardless of whether they are running in the same or different Electronic Control Units (ECUs), in-vehicle or off-vehicle, or are written in different programming languages. It provides the high-throughput needed to distribute lidar and camera data together with the low latency and real-time Quality of Service (QoS) necessary for time-critical processing. A rich set of tools further accelerate system design, development, integration, testing and debugging. Connext Drive is proven in use and its foundational components are safety certified to ISO 26262 ASIL D. Connext Drive is available today. For pricing and licensing, please contact info@rti.com.

About RTI
Real-Time Innovations (RTI) is the largest software framework company for autonomous systems. RTI Connext is the world’s leading architecture for developing intelligent distributed systems. Uniquely, Connext shares data directly, connecting AI algorithms to real-time networks of devices to build autonomous systems.

RTI is the best in the world at ensuring our customers’ success in deploying production systems. With over 1,700 designs, RTI software runs over 250 autonomous vehicle programs, controls the largest power plants in North America, coordinates combat management on U.S. Navy ships, drives a new generation of medical robotics, enables flying cars, and provides 24/7 intelligence for hospital and emergency medicine. RTI runs a smarter world.

RTI is the leading vendor of products compliant with the Object Management Group® (OMG®) Data Distribution Service™ (DDS) standard. RTI is privately held and headquartered in Sunnyvale, California with regional offices in Colorado, Spain and Singapore.