Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Stack Integration with Seating Control Unit (ECU)

Customer:

A reputed Tier-I Automotive Supplier, our customer partners with Global Automotive OEMs’ for Seating, Interiors and Emission control solutions.

Business Challenge:

For their next generation seating and seating control solutions, our customer wanted to minimize the need of manual controls for adjusting seat positions and other functionalities.

The product roadmap also included integration of active wellness and monitoring of vital body parameters.

However, customer was looking for a solution with low power footprints. This is because the seating control ECU would draw power from the car battery and can have a negative impact on the overall performance of the automobile.

Embitel Solution:

After initial workshops and requirement gathering , our Automotive Software Development team partnered with the customer for the following solution:

• Development and Integration of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) stack with Automotive ECU (electronic control unit) of the advanced Seating solution.
• BLE is a wireless personal area network technology designed for applications in the healthcare, fitness, beacons, security, and home entertainment. As compared to Classic Bluetooth, BLE ensures reduced power consumption and cost while offering a similar communication range.
• The integrated BLE stack ensured that the end-users were able to manage the seating position and configuration settings without using manual controls.
• Our automotive software developers integrated this BLE stack to also support Over-the-Air (OTA) firmware updates and ECU reprogramming.
• We also provided support for BLE Master Mode Stack and BLE Peripheral/Slave Mode Stack:
  • BLE Master Mode: Connects with external device like Smart-Watch, manages the pairing of devices and collects data from the external smart device.
    
  • BLE Peripheral/Slave Mode: Connects with a Mobile App, accept commands and transfers data to the App. Mobile App manages the pairing of devices.
    
• Developed encryption and decryption algorithms to ensure robust security of the system.
• Developed Mobile App and BLE stack also supports Active Wellness/Body Parameter monitoring functionalities.
• Mobile App has been designed and developed for Android and iOS with customized UX.

Tools and Technologies:

• Silicon Lab’s BT (bluetooth) IDE and BT library.
• Power PC hardware platform.
• Embedded C library.
• Android Studio and iPhone Framework for App Development.