AUTOMOTIVE GRADE LINUX

Mats Tage Axelsson shows how open source frameworks and Linux can help navigate you safely to your coding destination.

- Mats Tage Axelsson

Even though the car industry has been, and still is, quite slow on innovation, cars are now packed with electronics. The systems range from entertainment to keeping track of components and helping you drive safely – or not at all. Ever since Tesla included a tablet instead of instruments, the major manufacturers have been trying to keep up.

The Linux Foundation has joined this race by building the Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) distribution that was established in 2014. Designed to be run in a car (obviously) and available at all times, this means a small, embedded system for which there are plenty of options. AGL chose Yocto as an underlying build system as it’s already aimed at embedded systems and commonly used in IoT and other systems.

Choosing Yocto means all the communication protocols that an in-car system will need are included. Since these are for embedded systems, they already support the majority of buses and interfaces. Included in the distribution are many subsystems including infotainment, instrument clusters and more. As a project, they aim to have the base for all parts needed for a modern car. This also includes telematics and all the sophisticated stuff an autonomous vehicle needs.

Before you jump to the conclusion that this is a niche project not used in any actual cars, be aware that this is already running in many models from Subaru, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz. The project enjoys wide industry supports as the value to manufacturers is huge, saving them millions in development costs.