The OrangeBox is a single, security enhanced, modular development platform that provides a unified interface between the vehicle’s gateway and its wired and wireless technologies. By doing so, it provides a means for next- generation cars to securely communicate with the world around them.
With cars more connected than ever, they need to be able to utilise a variety of wireless technologies to provide drivers with everything from infotainment to advanced safety features. However, these technologies are distributed throughout the vehicle’s architecture, creating a variety of challenges that tend to be exacerbated as more and more connectivity features are added, as well as expanding the cyber-attack surface.
OrangeBox unifies these current and emerging external wireless interfaces into a single, security-enhanced connectivity domain controller, which then connects to the secure vehicle gateway through NXP high-speed Ethernet.
According to NXP, this consolidated, turn-key approach works to reduce development effort, optimises the movement of data across multiple communication interfaces, enables consistent, state-of-the-art security protection to be applied to all traffic entering the car, and eases the deployment of V2X and cloud applications such as over-the-air updates for software-defined vehicles.
Designed as a modular platform, OrangeBox provides OEMs and Tier-1s with the flexibility to adapt to various regional requirements for cellular connectivity and V2X, as well as enable in-field updates necessary to keep up with changing technologies – helping to accelerate time-to-market, reduce complexity and provide a complete system reference design ready for application deployment.
“By consolidating automotive wireless technologies into a centralised domain controller with a high- speed connection to the vehicle gateway, we are creating a single pathway for the vehicle to seamlessly connect to the rest of the world,” said Dan Loop, Vice President and General Manager for Automotive Edge Processing at NXP. “Not only can this help to reduce costs and streamline development, it addresses a critical piece of the puzzle for data-enriched vehicles that require centralized, secure connectivity.”
The OrangeBox development platform integrates technologies from NXP, including an advanced applications processor, a software-defined broadcast radio tuner, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth. It also includes secure car access with BLE and UWB, as well as 802.11p-based V2X, both secured by certified EdgeLock discrete NXP secure elements.
Support for 4G LTE or 5G cellular and GPS connectivity is also included.
All of which makes it easier for automakers to consistently apply state-of-the-art cloud-managed security technologies, such as next-generation firewalls, to data traffic entering or leaving the vehicle.
The central processor of the OrangeBox is an i.MX 8XLite applications processor running a unified Linux-based software platform to manage the automotive wireless connectivity. It includes an NXP gigabit Ethernet connection to the central vehicle gateway, allowing other automotive systems to leverage the benefits of integrated wireless connectivity.
