Eminent Technocrats Converged at NXP India TechConnect to Address Challenges in Automotive and IoT Applications

NXP India, a world leader in secure connectivity solutions for embedded applications organized the TechConnect Industry TechSummit on ‘Next Generation Product Development Challenges and Opportunities in Automotive, IoT and Networking Applications’ at Manayata Tech Park in Bangalore. The event featured panelists from leading organizations, such as HCL, LDRA, NVIDIA and Synopsys, academic institutions, such as IIT-Delhi and startups, such as Orxca Energies, among others.

The summit included two panel discussions - ‘Next Generation Product development’ and ‘Verification and Validation’. While the first discussion focused on challenges and opportunities emerging from Connected Infotainment, Autonomous Vehicles, Industrial IoT, e-bike battery innovations, security for IoT, Networking & Automotive applications and Industry-academia partnerships for training newer generations of students in associated technologies; the second panel plunged into the technical challenges associated with security in verification and validation. Some of India’s most valued dignitaries attended the discussions and debated on various product development challenges that have been exponentially increasing, particularly with shrinking geometries.

The panel discussion also brought out the emphasis on addressing security aspects of the new applications at all levels of Hardware and Software abstraction with the paced emergence of autonomous cars, IoT and 5G wireless connectivity. The discussion further highlighted the increasing need to address specific technical challenges on emerging applications, such as Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.

The day-long event witnessed participation from industry experts, such as Magesh Srinivasan, Global Head, Connected Car & AI, HCL; Preeti Ranjan Panda, Head of Department of IT & Engineering, IIT Delhi; Ganesh Shankar, Founder and CEO, FluxGen Technologies; Prajwal Sabnis, Co-Founder, Orxa Energies Pvt. Ltd.; Shinto Joseph, Director, South East Asia Operations, LDRA; Manoharan CP, Director, Systems Engineering & Field Sales Support, Spirent; Anand  Muthaiah, VP Engineering, Tessolve Semiconductors; Puneet Ahuja, Sr. Design Engineering Manager, Cadence; Amit Sharma, Director, Corporate Applications Engineering, Synopsys; Yogesh Mittal, Director, Functional Verification & Emulation, NXP and Amit Agarwal, Senior Engineering Manager, NVIDIA. The panels were moderated by Kumaran Venkatesh, President & Partner, AXLerateNOW and Vijay Chachra, Director of Engineering, NXP Semiconductors.

Speaking of the initiative, Sanjay Gupta, Vice President & India Country Manager, NXP India said, “India has huge technological talent and NXP India has constantly worked towards uniting this talent with related skills and expertise. TechConnect is one such initiative that has helped expand NXP India’s horizons of industry knowledge and synergize with fierce thoughts and minds to emerge as a driver of next generation innovation in the secure connected vehicle, end-to-end security and smart connected solutions.”

Kicking off the discussion, the moderator Kumaran Venkatesh, President & Partner, AXLerateNOW said “The future of Next generation product development would revolve around Artificial intelligence and Machine learning. The challenge for product developers is designing futuristic connected devices with IOT and security in mind.”

Adding to the discussion on challenges faced by Autonomous Vehicles, Gupta said, “Autonomous vehicles need safety-related functionality that can sense and react to hazardous situations. It’s an engineering process as critical as engineering the product itself. Think of all the hazardous contingencies that an autonomous vehicle has to contend with—particularly in an urban environment. This need to anticipate a wide range of possible interactions between the vehicle and its environment is one of the biggest challenges in developing safety for autonomous vehicles. To comply with FS standards, an engineer must anticipate what can go wrong when a product interacts with its environment (including us unpredictable humans), then conceive of a safety-related system and place the system into an appropriate safe state. Add to this, further consideration of whether that safe state will itself result in a hazard.”

Speaking on the note of trends and challenges of the connected cars and AI, Magesh Srinivasan, Global Head- Connected car & AI, HCL says “Today, infotainment is on the brink of major evolution with the next global megatrend being seamless connectivity between smartphones and automobiles. Connectivity to cloud and other types of Internet-based computing that help users improve their driving pattern and vehicle health, by predictive analysis of driving patterns, vehicle health and maintenance, will be the key differentiators eventually. And that’s not it. Manufacturers across the globe have already started adopting intelligent infotainment systems, such as Android Automotive, which enhance safety on the move by providing safe connectivity, navigation and media experience.”

NXP’s TechConnect is a comprehensive platform dedicated to sharing knowledge, tools & best practices, and initiating dialogues on innovation and disruptive technologies, through events, such as the TechTalk, TechSymposium, TechTutorial, and TechSummit. In its essence, TechConnect aims to promote the spirit of innovation and empower employees to connect and learn from industry veterans.