At our recent SNIA Networking Storage Forum (NSF) webcast “Revving up Storage for Automotive” our expert presenters, Ryan Suzuki and John Kim, discussed storage implications as vehicles are turning into data centers on wheels. If you missed the live event, it is available on-demand together with the presentations slides.
Our audience asked several interesting questions on this quickly evolving industry. Here are John and Ryan’s answers to them.
Q: What do you think the current storage landscape is missing to support the future of IoV [Internet of Vehicles]? Are there any identified cases of missing features from storage (edge/cloud) which are preventing certain ideas from being implemented and deployed?
[Ryan] I would have to say no, currently there are no missing features in edge or cloud storage that are preventing ideas from being implemented. If anything, more vehicles need to adopt both wireless connectivity and the associated systems (IVI, ADAS/AD) to truly realize IoV. This will take some time as these technologies are just beginning to be offered in vehicles today. There are 200 million vehicles on the road in the US while in a typical year 17 million new vehicles are sold.
[John] My personal opinion is no—the development of the IoV is currently limited by a combination of AI training power in the datacenter, compute power within the vehicles, wireless bandwidth (such as waiting for the broader rollout of 5G), and the development of software for new vehicles. Possibly the biggest limit is the slow rate of replacement of existing non-connected vehicles with IoV-capable. The IoV will definitely require more and possibly smarter storage in the datacenter, cloud and edge, but that storage is not what is limiting or blocking the faster rollout of IoV.
Q: Talking from a long-term view, is on-board storage the way to go or will we be shifting to storage at the network edge given high bandwidth network like 5G is flourishing?
[Ryan] On-board storage will remain in vehicles and continue to grow because vehicles must be fully operational from a driving perspective even if a wireless connection (5G or otherwise) cannot be established. For example, systems in the vehicle required for safe driving (ADAS/AD) must operate independent of an outside connection. In addition, data collected during operation may need to be stored in the event of a slow or intermittent connection to avoid loss of data.
Q: What is the anticipated hourly storage needed? At one point this was in the multiple TB range.
[John] HD video (1080p at 30 frames per second) requires from 2-4 GB/hour and 4K video requires 15-20 GB/hour, so if a car has 6 HD cameras and a few additional sensors being recorded, the hourly storage need for a normal ADAS would be 8-30 GB/hour. However, a car being used to train, develop or test ADAS/AD systems would collect multiple video angles, more types of data and higher-resolution video/audio/radar/lidar/performance data, possibly requiring 1-5 TB per hour.
Q: Do you know of any specific storage requirement, design etc. in the car or the backend, specifically for meeting the UNECE 155/156? It’s specifically for software update, hence the storage question
[Ryan] Currently, there are no specific automotive requirements for storage products to meet UNECE 155/156. This regulation was developed by a regional commission of the UN focused on Europe. While security is a concern and will grow as cars become more connected, in my opinion, an international regulation/standard needs to be agreed upon to ensure a consistent level of security for all vehicles in all regions.
Q: Does automotive storage need to be ASIL-B or ASIL-D certified?
[Ryan] Individual storage components are not ASIL certified as the certification is completed at the system level. For example, systems like vision ADAS, anti-lock braking, and power steering (self-steering), require ASIL-D certification, the highest compliance level. Typically, components that mention a specific level of ASIL compliance have been evaluated at a system hardware level.
Q. What type of endurance does automotive storage need, given the average or 99% percentile lifespan of a modern car?
[Ryan] It depends on how the storage device is being used. If the device is used for code/application storage such as the AI Inference, the endurance requirement will be relatively low as it only needs to support periodic updates of the code and updates of high-definition maps. Storage devices used for data logging on the other hand, require a higher endurance level as data is written during vehicle operation, uploaded to the cloud later typically through a WiFi connection and then erased. This cycle is repeated every time the vehicle is driven.
Q. Will 5G change how much data vehicles can send and receive while driving?
[John] Eventually yes, because 5G allows higher wireless/cellular data rates. However, 5G antennas also have shorter range, so more of those antennas and base stations are required for coverage. This means 5G will roll out first in urban centers and will take time to roll out in more rural areas, and vehicles that drive to rural areas will not be able to count on always using the higher 5G data rates. 5G will also be used to connect vehicles in defined environments such as a school campus, bus/truck depot, factory, warehouse or police station. For example, a robot operating only within a warehouse could count on having 5G access all the time, and a bus, police car or ADAS/AD training car could store terabytes of data in the vehicle and upload it easily over a local 5G connection once it returns to the garage or station.
Q. In autonomous driving, are all the AI compute capabilities and AI rules or training stored inside each car? Or are AD cars relying somewhat on AI running somewhere in the cloud?
[John] Most of the AI rules for actually driving (AI inferencing) must be stored inside each car because there isn’t enough time to consult a computer (or additional rules) stored in the cloud and use them for real-time driving decisions. The training data and machine learning training algorithms used to create the training rules are typically stored in the cloud or in a corporate data center. Updated training rules, navigation data, and vehicle system software updates can all be stored in the cloud and pushed out to vehicles on a periodic basis. Traffic or weather data can be stored in the cloud and sent to vehicles (or to phones in vehicles) as often as several times each minute.
Q. Does the chip shortage mean car companies are putting less storage inside new cars than they think they should?
[Ryan] Not from what I have seen. For vehicles currently in production, the designs are locked and with a limited number of vehicles OEMs can produce, they have shifted production to higher-end models to maximize profit. This means the systems in these vehicles may actually use higher amounts of storage to support the features. For new vehicle development, storage capacities continue to grow in order to enable new applications including IVI and ADAS.
[John] Generally no, the manufacturers are still putting in whatever amount of storage they originally planned for each vehicle and simply limiting the number of vehicles built based on the supply of semiconductors, and the limitations tend to be across several types of chips, not just memory or storage chips. It’s possible in some cars they are using older, different, or more expensive storage components than originally planned in order to get around chip shortages, but the total amount of storage is unlikely to decrease.
Q. Can typical data storage inside a car be upgraded or expanded?
[Ryan] Due to the shock and vibration vehicles encounter during operation, storage devices typically come in a BGA package and are soldered onto a PCB for higher reliability. Increasing the density would require replacing the PCB for a new board with a higher capacity storage device. Some new vehicles are installing external USB ports that can use USB drives to store non-critical information such as security camera footage while the vehicle is parked.
Q. Given the critical nature of AD systems or even engine control software, do car makers do anything special with their storage to ensure high availability or high uptime? How does a car deal with storage failure?
[Ryan] In the case of autonomous driving, this is a safety critical system and the reliability is examined at a system level. In an AD system, there are typically multiple SOCs not only to handle the complex computational tasks, but also for redundancy. In the event the main SOC system fails, another SOC can take over to ensure the vehicle continues to operate safely. From a storage standpoint, each SOC typically uses its own storage device.
Q. You know those black boxes they put in planes (or cars) to record data in case of a crash? Those boxes are designed to survive crashes. Why can’t they build the whole car out of the same stuff?
[Ryan] While this would provide an ultimate level of safety for passengers, it is unfortunately not economically feasible. To scale a black box with the approximate volume of a 2.5” hard drive to over 120 ft3 (interior passenger and cargo volume) of a standard mid-size vehicle would be cost prohibitive.
[John] It would be too expensive and possibly too heavy to build the entire car like a “black box” data recorder. Also, a black box just needs to be designed to make one small component or data storage very survivable while the entire car needs to act as an impact protection and energy absorption system that maximizes the survivability of the occupants during and after an accident.
Q. What prevents hackers from breaching automotive systems and modifying the car’s software or deleting critical data?
[John] Automotive systems are typically designed with fewer remote access paths and tighter security to make it harder to breach the system. Usually, the systems require encrypted keys from the vehicle manufacturer to access the systems remotely, and some updates or data deletion may be possible only with physical access to the car’s data port. Also, certain data may be stored on flash or persistent memory within the vehicle to make it harder to delete. Still even with these precautions, a mistake or bug in the vehicle’s software or firmware could allow a hacker to gain unauthorized access in rare cases.
Q. Would most automotive storage run as block, file, or object storage?
[John] Most of the local storage inside a vehicle and anything storing standardized databases or small logs would probably be block storage, as that typically is easy to use for local storage and/or structured data. Data center storage for AI or ADAS training, vehicle design, or aerodynamic/crash/FEA simulation is usually file-based storage to allow for easy sharing and technical computing across multiple servers. Any archived data for vehicle design, training, simulation, videos, telemetry that is stored outside the vehicle is most likely to be object storage because these are typically larger files with unstructured data that don’t change after creation and need to be retained for a long time.
Q. Does automotive storage need to use redundancy like RAID or erasure coding?
[Ryan] No, current single-device storage solutions with built-in ECC provide the required reliability. Implementing a RAID system or erasure encoding would require multiple drives significantly driving up the cost. Electronics currently account for 40% of a new vehicle’s total cost and it is expected to continue growing. Switching from an existing solution that meets system requirements to a storage solution that is multiple times the cost is not practical.