Sonatus Foundation - Network Services

Build flexible
vehicle networks using
automotive ethernet

Sonatus Foundation’s Network Services provide the key software ingredients to build modern software-defined networks based on automotive ethernet.

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Ethernet Network Manager

Vehicle manufacturers are embracing automotive ethernet to bring high-speed and flexible networking to software-defined vehicles. However, as vehicles look to add more capabilities and new technologies after production, it is critical that the vehicle network design can be adapted over time. In addition, design challenges like network contention on a switched network requires the ability to tune routing and quality of service after production.

Foundation’s Ethernet Network Manager allows vehicle electrical and electronics engineers to centrally manage in-vehicle automotive ethernet networks to monitor, configure and troubleshoot issues at any time, including post-production.

Benefits

  • Faster and more reliable data transfer among CAN and Ethernet components
  • Reduce downtime and repair costs by providing manageability of the network
  • Improve network security and segment traffic to prevent unauthorized access
  • Reduce the risk of cyber attacks and help maintain vehicle safety and security
  • Faster and more advanced diagnostics and feature validation before and after SoP

Key Technical Features

  • L2/L3 forwarding, queueing, ACL, and VLAN configuration
  • Ethernet Port Mirroring configuration
  • Network statistics monitoring configuration
  • Switch health monitoring and fail-safe updates
  • Dynamic in-vehicle network provisioning
  • UDS-based diagnostics for network troubleshooting
  • Packet interceptor for collecting Ethernet packets
  • Interface with Diagnostics Manager for secure OBD access
  • Cloud-based management
    • Policy management and deployment
    • Network Statistics Monitoring
    • Switch Health Monitoring

Vehicle-to-Cloud Communications Controller

Connecting to the cloud is an integral part of transition to software-defined vehicles.  Sonatus Foundation’s Vehicle-to-Cloud Communications Controller (VCC) gives OEMs fine-grained control over how vehicles connect to the cloud over broadband access, OBD-II ports or over WiFi, ensuring it is done securely and cost-effectively.

VCC provides management of vehicle firewall, local DNS, cellular APNs, broadband bandwidth consumption, QoS and other vehicle-to-X related settings.

Benefits

  • Increases visibility into external communications to detect and diagnose issues 
  • Improves security with threat prevention mechanisms
  • Allows management to minimize cellular data transmission costs
  • Enables users to connect devices to the cloud 
  • Optimizes network performance and reduces latency 
  • Maximizes hardware performance

Key Technical Features

  • Flexible traffic steering to desired APN with fallback option
  • Network Firewall with connection tracking
  • VLAN and subnet-based traffic isolation
  • Network Address Translation (NAT)
  • Application-specific local DNS
  • Network traceability with packet logging and detailed statistics
  • WiFi hotspot tethering support
  • Dual Stack IPv4-IPv6 support
  • Support for different regional policies
  • Hardware acceleration
  • Cloud-based management across fleets of vehicles
    • Policy management
    • Connectivity statistics monitoring
    • Data usage monitoring
    • Data cap enforcement

CAN-Ethernet Gateway

Sonatus Foundation’s CAN-Ethernet Gateway service provides seamless interoperability between CAN and Ethernet networks in a vehicle.  The Gateway translates Ethernet messages into CAN signals and vice versa, allowing ECUs and  applications on either networks to communicate with each other efficiently. Specifically, the Gateway provides the following functionality:

  • Message Encapsulation: It encapsulates CAN messages into UDP packets and transports them via Ethernet, enabling communication between CAN and Ethernet networks.
  • Protocol Translation: The Gateway translates data and control information between the CAN and Ethernet protocols, facilitating communication between these two different network types.
  • Network Bridging: In bridge mode, two CAN-Ethernet Gateways can connect two separate CAN networks via IP, extending the reach and flexibility of CAN networks.
  • Integration with Existing Networks: It allows the integration of CAN buses into existing Ethernet topologies, making it suitable as a universal PC CAN interface.
  • High-Speed Connections: It provides high-speed CAN interfaces and multiple LAN connections, supporting complex network setups.

Partnerships

Partnering to innovate modern vehicle networks

NXP
Marvell
Broadcom
Realtek
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Frequently asked questions?

Why Automotive Ethernet?

Automotive ethernet is emerging as the automotive industry’s future direction for in-vehicle network technology. Compared to existing fixed CAN or FlexRay-based networks, automotive ethernet offers a superior technology for vehicle networks. The expansion of connected vehicles and increasing diversity of automotive applications requires vehicle networks to be more dynamic, and the automotive ethernet standard is emerging as the protocol of choice, building on top of standard ethernet to meet the demanding needs of the automotive industry.
Ethernet-based communication is the standard communication protocol in most existing computer applications and features high data rates, typically based on a set of four twisted pair conductors. In automotive applications, new standards have emerged including a single twisted pair that provides smaller physical cable size while still providing all the benefits of internet protocol (IP). Routing a single twisted pair throughout the vehicle can reduce vehicle weight, and provide improved data rates for modern traffic types, resulting simultaneously in low cost but improved capabilities.
In today’s vehicles, safety systems such as advanced driver assistance systems are likely connected over automotive ethernet. Compared to standard ethernet, automotive ethernet adopts additional standards like time sensitive networking to adapt ethernet for automotive use. This brings many benefits and enables real time applications and safety critical systems to operate on top of automotive ethernet.

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