Brief introduction to Android Automotive OS

--This article is excerpted from Google’s official about automotive, plz indicate the source for reprinting–

1. Android for Car

Android for Cars provides two complementary ways for developers to deliver their app experiences in a car:

• Android Auto: Phone-based infotainment system that’s projected onto the screens of compatible cars.
• Android Automotive OS (AAOS): Infotainment platform that’s built into cars and customized by car makers

2. What`s Android Automotive OS(AAOS)？

• Android Automotive is Android

  • Android Automotive is not a fork or parallel development of Android. It is the same codebase and lives in the same repository as the Android shipped on phones, tablets, etc.
  • able to run pre-installed IVI system Android applications.
  • able to run optional second- and third-party Android Applications.

• Android Automotive extends Android

  • full-feature infotainment platform.
  • supports automotive-specific requirements, features, and technologies.
  • full-stack, turnkey automotive infotainment platform, just as Android is for mobile today.
  • supports apps built for Android as well as those built for Android Auto.
  • offers openness, customization, and scale to automotive infotainment systems and head units.

3. What`s Google Automotive Services (GAS) ?

• Google Automotive Services (GAS) is a collection of applications and services that automotive OEMs can choose to license and integrate into their in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems.

• The usage of GAS
  Car makers who wish to provide Google services such as Maps, Play Store, Assistant, and so on can work directly with Google to support GAS. GAS consists of software built on top of Android Automotive OS for the purpose of delivering such services.

• How to access GAS :

  • i). automotive OEMs get the license.
  • ii). automotive OEMs fetch the GAS.

  For details and access to latest version of GAS applications, reach sout to OEM`s Google point of contact.

• Partner roles :

  • Builds infotainment systems based on Google’s software and specs.
  • Customizes the UI to reflect own brand and configurations of specific cars.

4. Architecture Overview of AAOS

• Car API. Contains the APIs such as CarHvacManager and CarSensorManager.
  For details on supported APIs, refer to platform/packages/services/Car/car-lib.

• CarService. Located at /platform/packages/services/Car/.

• Vehicle HAL. Interface that defines the vehicle properties OEMs can implement.
  Contains property metadata (for example, whether the vehicle property is an int and which change modes are allowed). Located at hardware/libhardware/include/hardware/vehicle.h.
  For a basic reference implementation, refer to hardware/libhardware/modules/vehicle/.

• VehicleNetworkService：

  • controls automotive HALs through built-in secure mechanism,that only access to system components.
  • （3rd-parties , none-system components need to use Car API).
  • OEMs can control access permissions by maintaining vns_policy.xml 和 vendor_vns_policy.xml .Located /platform/packages/services/Car/vehicle_network_service/；
  • To review the library used to access the vehicle network，refer to /platform/packages/services/Car/libvehiclenetwork/.

to be continued >>>

---

creator	Date	Version
Justin_Yip	2021-01-01	1.0