It hasn’t been a year since HARMAN International became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics focused on connected technologies for automotive, consumer and enterprise markets, and the two companies have already leveraged their combined teams and resources to drive future mobility forward. Unveiled today at CES 2018 are a host of unique connected car solutions that support HARMAN and Samsung’s joint mission to become the leader in connectivity and autonomous driving: connecting the lives of people, whether at home, on the go, or together in the car.

These key innovations showcase an integrated approach to a rich digital car experience, including:

• A reinvented digital cockpit platform for all vehicle segments that has given the interior of the car a makeover;
• A new telematics solution along with the industry first automotive-grade 5G-ready connectivity solution; and
• An ecosystem of partners and solutions to further build out the Samsung open autonomous platform, along with a showcase of our first implementation of this together with TTTech.

Each new solution was made possible through the HARMAN-Samsung alliance that leverages Samsung’s global scale, R&D capabilities, dominance in mobile/TV/semiconductors and distribution channels and HARMAN’s leading connected car heritage, relationships, market knowledge and growing community of innovation partners. Both companies are also making global investments in start-ups to help OEMs meet growing consumer demand for in-vehicle technology through scalable solutions that enhance the user experience for every vehicle segment.

“Together with Samsung, we have increased innovation speed through scale, resources and competencies to help automakers focus on the car’s evolution from device-centric to experience centric,” said Dinesh Paliwal, HARMAN President and CEO. “HARMAN has the heritage and expertise in automotive, and collectively HARMAN and Samsung harness our best technologies and global scale to accelerate how we better serve the needs of automakers in this rapidly evolving automotive market.”

New HARMAN Digital Cockpit Platform  

The new Digital Cockpit platform includes a suite of flexible and scalable premium experiences that support today’s connected lifestyles without compromising safety or performance. It’s available in standard and advanced system configurations and can seamlessly integrate the instrument cluster with center console via voice, haptic feedback, and physical knobs and steering wheel controls in a single, center screen for all vital vehicle information and features. This also supports a multi-modal approach for interactions with different human-machine interfaces to allow customization in terms of HVAC, media and user settings.

The Digital Cockpit platform brings an entirely new generation of communication and ergonomics inside vehicles, allowing drivers to focus on the road ahead while intuitively and safely interacting with their in-car technology. This is made possible through a projection mode for services and apps via a user’s smartphone, allowing for increased personalization. A greater IoT ecosystem via cloud technology in the entry-level segment, as well as mid/high-level configurations, not only improves connectivity, but helps lower costs and overall vehicle weight.

In a premium configuration, the Digital Cockpit weaves together a driver’s entire connected lifestyle across the Internet of Things. Through a multi-display layout that leverages HARMAN’s Ignite Platform, the in-car user experience can be personalized for the driver and passenger via services such as virtual personal assistants, portable profiles, augmented reality and more. This also allows for the Android OS to be integrated on four displays – a first for the industry.

Focused on a future generation of shared mobility, the premium Digital Cockpit personalizes occupant experiences, so drivers and passengers feel like the car is theirs even if they don’t own it. By leveraging the phone as a key service, the system can automatically access subscription services associated with user profiles while Bixby offers intelligent personal assistance to help occupants complete tasks by voice, touch, gesture and context-based triggers.

The Digital Cockpit is scalable and made available for every automotive segment, offering future proof and safety focused features within a developer-friendly open ecosystem.

First 5G Automotive Telematics Solution and Customer

HARMAN and Samsung are jointly developing modular approaches for advanced telematics, capable of 1 Gb/s bandwidth. HARMAN and Samsung will deliver the industry’s first 5G-ready automotive solution and multi-band conformal antenna to enable secure, fast and reliable data communications. The solution consists of a telematics control unit with a modular design accommodating a network access device (NAD) supporting LTE CAT 16 connectivity today and 5G in the future leveraging the same hardware design. 5G represents a paradigm shift in the future of mobility. In the automotive sector, 5G delivers safety-enhancing C-V2X capability that is an essential enabler for autonomous transportation. 5G boosts speeds up to 100X faster than current 4G LTE standards to provide incredibly fast high-resolution streaming, immersive virtual and augmented reality features and seamless cloud-based applications in fast-moving cars. Ultra-reliable and with low-latency response times of just 1ms, 5G enables C-V2X and cloud-based compute and storage for the next generation autonomous vehicles. HARMAN today announced that a leading European automaker will be the first customer for this solution. At CES 2018, HARMAN and Samsung will demonstrate high speed connectivity in a future mobility concept vehicle powered by the Samsung Networks 5G infrastructure.

Advanced Driving Solutions Today for an Autonomous Tomorrow

Developed in close collaboration with HARMAN, Samsung announced its new DRVLINE platform, an open and modular platform for autonomous driving designed to scale from Level 3 automation up to Levels 4 and 5. The two companies will continue to focus on engineering, high-performance computing, sensor technologies, algorithms, artificial intelligence, and cloud and connectivity solutions that are scalable and capable of lower-level autonomy through to Level 5. The first HARMAN/Samsung-developed ADAS product will be a forward-facing camera featuring lane-departure warning, adaptive cruise control, collision warning and pedestrian warning algorithms. The new system combines Samsung’s heritage in camera technology with HARMAN’s ADAS 360 solution that blends machine learning and data science with augmented reality to create a self-learning virtual co-passenger to ensure the connected driving experience is personalized and safe. The new system will begin shipping in 2018.

Visit HARMAN’s newsroom for additional information about these new solutions and check back for updates now through CES 2018.

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ABOUT HARMAN

HARMAN (harman.com) designs and engineers connected products and solutions for automakers, consumers, and enterprises worldwide, including connected car systems, audio and visual products, enterprise automation solutions; and services supporting the Internet of Things.  With leading brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, Mark Levinson® and Revel®, HARMAN is admired by audiophiles, musicians and the entertainment venues where they perform around the world. More than 50 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and connected car systems. Our software services power billions of mobile devices and systems that are connected, integrated and secure across all platforms, from work and home to car and mobile. HARMAN has a workforce of approximately 30,000 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. In March 2017, HARMAN became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

TTTech has been active in the automotive space for years, providing technology to a variety of manufacturers. Samsung’s future investment complements TTTech’s longstanding partnership with AUDI AG and their combined efforts in highly automated piloted driving systems for Volkswagen Group. TTTech’s safety technologies power the zFAS piloted control platform in the 2017 Audi A8.

Beyond automotive, TTTech has improved the safety and reliability of networked computer systems in the aerospace and industrial sectors, with its technologies found in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and NASA’s Orion spacecraft.

“Automotive advances like autonomous controls and advanced driver assistance systems will have a profound impact on society—from transforming urban spaces to bringing mobility to aging populations.   At Samsung, we see it as our responsibility to invest in the technologies that will revolutionize the way we live, work, and connect with one another,” said Young Sohn, President and Chief Strategy Officer of Samsung Electronics and Chairman of the Board for HARMAN. “TTTech has demonstrated a remarkable ability to innovate and build world-class technologies and platforms. This is a seminal moment for Samsung and our Automotive Innovation Fund, and we look forward to working with leading OEMs like Audi and the entire TTTech team to set a new standard for automotive-safety technology.”

“We’re excited about Samsung’s commitment to TTTech and the joint creation of new architecture for open autonomous and ADAS technologies, involving multiple key automotive players and suppliers,” said Alejandro Vukotich, Vice President Autonomous Driving of AUDI AG.

“We are very proud to have Samsung as an investor and partner in TTTech to create solutions for the next generation of highly integrated and data-intensive safety systems” said Georg Kopetz, Member of the Board at TTTech. “Samsung brings a breadth and a depth of technologies as well as an ecosystem of partners to accelerate development for level 2 to level 5 autonomous platforms.”

“Together we will build products to support new NCAP requirements, solutions for in-vehicle infotainment systems, and new scalable architectures to support fully autonomous vehicles across various industries,” stated Stefan Poledna, Member of the Board at TTTech.

At a transformative moment for the auto industry, TTTech plans to use Samsung’s investment to accelerate the growth of its safety technology for autonomous driving and operations. The company’s collaborative and flexible technology—like its new open safety platform, MotionWise—enables OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers to accelerate the development, integration, and validation of new capabilities in their vehicles.

Together, Samsung and HARMAN are fostering the development of cutting-edge automotive safety technologies like those from TTTech, which will raise the bar for automotive safety controls and ADAS throughout the industry.  HARMAN, a Tier 1 supplier, now makes TTTech’s open safety solutions available to the leading global automotive OEMs.

President Young Sohn will join Ricky Hudi, founder and managing director of Future Mobility Technologies, and other industry experts on TTTech Auto division’s new supervisory board.

About TTTech

TTTech is a global leader in the field of robust networking and safety controls. TTTech solutions improve the safety and reliability of electronic systems in the industrial and transportation sectors, with a portfolio of products that are helping to make the Industrial Internet of Things and autonomous driving a reality.

Thanks to the platform-based architecture, TTTech Auto’s production proven solutions enable simple system integration with shorter time-to-market and significant cost reductions for customers. TTTech solutions support highly scalable and modular open real-time control architectures based on Deterministic Ethernet and operates within a rich ecosystem of technology partners.

More information about TTTech and TTTech Auto is available at www.tttech.com

Forward Looking Statement

This press release contains certain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended, including but are not limited to, statements regarding the benefits of the strategic partnership between Samsung and TTTech Auto;  the development of next-generation solutions for auto safety systems; and the ability of TTTech technology to enable OEMs and other customers to build advance auto safety solutions. These and any other forward-looking statements in this release are based on the parties’ current expectations of future events and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially and adversely from those set forth in or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, changes in the markets and the regulatory environment of automobile technology industries, difficulties in integrating technologies of the parties in the partnership, the inability of the new solutions to achieve wide market acceptance, and the ability to compete with other products in the market. The companies are providing the information in this release as of this date and do not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.