With enabling automated driving applications in mind, Xilinx Inc., which specializes in adaptive and intelligent computing, has announced a new strategic collaboration with German car parts maker ZF Friedrichshafen that will result in Xilinx’s technology powering ZF's highly-advanced artificial intelligence (AI)-based automotive control unit known as ZF ProAI.

Xilinx’s Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC platform is being used by ZF to handle real-time data aggregation, pre-processing, and distribution. The platform is also being used to provide compute acceleration for the AI processing in ZF's new AI-based electronic control unit.

According to Xilinx, ZF selected the company's platform because it allows the ZF ProAI platform to be customized for each of its customer's unique requirements, thanks to Xilinx's Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC platform providing the necessary processing power, scalability and flexibility.

“We are proud to partner with ZF on its ProAI platform and help solve the challenges associated with autonomous vehicle development,” says Yousef Khalilollahi, vice president, core vertical markets, Xilinx.

“By providing an adaptable hardware platform, ZF can design flexible and scalable systems that seamlessly incorporate AI compute acceleration and functional safety (FuSa) through diversity in processing engines. We look forward to expanding our collaboration with ZF to take autonomous and AI innovation to the next level.”

Torsten Gollewski, head of ZF Advanced Engineering and general manager of Zukunft Ventures GmbH, adds, “the unique selling proposition of the ZF ProAI is its modular hardware concept and open software architecture. Our aim is to provide the widest possible range of functions in the field of autonomous driving.”

This approach is considered unique, the companies say, compared to other systems on the market, which commonly use a fixed combination of hardware and software architecture. That approach can potentially limit functionality and add more cost, the companies say.