Graduate in the driving seat: producing an in-car infotainment system demo

I worked on a project to create a demo for an in-car infotainment system based on an ARM processor. This was exhibited at trade shows to demonstrate what our technology is capable of.

We included a variety of elements, including 3D sat nav, an MP3 player docking station, audio, climate control, a video player (for video files on SD cards) and text (for example the ability for the car to read out texts if connected to a mobile). Crucially, this was all run by one multiprocessor core, whereas usually several processors would be used.

There was a screen for the driver with basic information (eg sat nav, a digital fuel-gauge read-out and details of music currently playing) and a separate screen in the middle of the dashboard as the main entertainment centre. We had a mock car dashboard made up into which to incorporate the screens, and speakers fitted at the sides.

My role on the project

Five of us worked solidly on the project for around three months, starting by brainstorming ideas of what applications we’d like to see included.

My role was to put together a framework for all the different applications to fit into and to design the menu system; this was 3D and rotational in appearance. Quite a lot of the technology was new to me (and to others on the team) so I researched aspects such as shared memory and how the different elements would communicate, which I did via the web, books and talking to colleagues.

Learning about multicore processing

I learned a lot about multicore processing and developing applications for this. Multicore processing systems are a dominant aspect of today’s technology and work differently from single processing systems – there were a few aspects of programming I had to relearn. We had to debug our programming quite a lot as we got to grips with this!

The menu system was created from graphical elements so I also learned to create these from scratch.

Working closely with the rest of the project team

The project was the largest one I’d worked on at that time so communication and teamwork were vital. We had to make sure we knew how far along all the elements were, whether anything was taking longer than expected and if we needed to put our own tasks on hold to help another team member out.

As we got close to the first trade show we had to put in some overtime and work a couple of weekends but I was enjoying the project so I didn’t mind. It was also great to get to know the rest of the project team personally and to tackle difficult tasks together.

Attending trade shows in Cambridge and San Francisco

I found it empowering to have an important role on a project such as this. I attended two of the trade shows that the demo was sent to – here in Cambridge and in San Francisco – and felt proud when attendees saw it and were impressed.

Michael McGeagh is a software engineer at ARM. He took a BSc in computer science at Nottingham Trent University, graduating in 2008.