Success-Plan Services
Mihai Potoceanu
As vehicle architecture evolves into software-defined vehicle (SDV) platforms, the complexity of designing, deploying, and validating SDV architectures has grown exponentially. To address these challenges, RTI is now integrating AI capabilities into the latest version of Connext Drive to help accelerate development cycles and scale deployments from local ECUs to cloud environments.
If you are working with Connext Drive today or exploring what it can do for your future SDV design, RTI is committed to your success. We’ve been working with several OEMs to speed up development and reduce the complexity of taking SDVs into production. From this, we’ve learned exactly where things get hard and what is really needed. The Top 3 takeaways are:
- Integration can be painful without the right partner
- “SDV-ready” isn’t always plug-and-play
- Your engineers don’t need slideware: they need real examples they can run easily
RTI application engineers can address all of these challenges through the following steps:
Case + Code and Market Needs Assessment
Efficient design begins with several relevant examples from the RTI automotive portfolio, mapped out in the form of a Case + Code and market requirements capture. From ADAS to infotainment, each automotive domain requires domain-specific blueprints to ensure consistent design, quality and compliance. Since RTI supports different consortia and key standards (AUTOSAR, COVESA, OMG DDS™, SOAFEE, etc.), our communication software framework interoperates easily with a large number of blueprints. You can view the full portfolio of Case + Code examples here.
This approach establishes a foundation for scalability, with the ability to feed a variety of critical data into the RTI Connext Chatbot, including:
- Data models
- Network topologies
- Performance budgets
- Quality of Service (QoS) guidelines
Working with a blueprint for your domain can help you to jumpstart your initial design and accelerate the initial project phases, which tend to be the most costly.
Our AI Chatbot Functions as Your Engineering Copilot
Developers can now interact with the Connext Chatbot, which is supercharged with visualization capabilities. You can use plain UML or draw freehand. It’s not just a support tool; think of it as your architecture partner.
The AI Chatbot understands the context and accesses architectural metadata. Therefore, it can help:
- Generate XML models examples
- Offer configuration recommendations
- Define QoS settings based on use cases
The Chatbot is context-aware to help you with the design and validation of code. This approach saves research time, catches errors early and helps developers make smarter decisions.
Visual Studio Integration
To bridge architecture and implementation, the Connext Chatbot offers integration with Visual Studio to support:
- Code snippet generation
- Debugging capabilities
- Real-time code checks
This approach reduces integration overhead through model-based generation and CI/CD integration. More advanced Connext Drive users can integrate directly into our standard tooling.
For example, the RTI System Designer tool now includes an experimental AI assistant that is grounded in RTI’s extensive knowledge base. You can create and modify your systems using natural language – this enables you to ask questions, request changes and get suggestions for improving your design, all without having to wade through raw XML. In addition, developers can receive instant feedback on topic mismatches or QoS violations.
We invite you to see the example prompt and code at the end of this blog post.
See It in Action
Try the use cases
The RTI SDV toolchain provides sequential, integrated tools to streamline the development cycle. Explore Case + Code blueprints for use cases from Zonal Architecture to ADAS and more.
Chat with Connext AI
See how our AI assistant helps you to model, design, and debug faster on use cases such as simulation, in order to understand and help resolve integration challenges upfront.
Accelerate Success
Learn how Connext Drive with AI can help automotive and mobility teams accelerate their project under tight timelines as they work with increasingly complex software-defined systems. The Connext Drive platform is designed to make that journey dramatically smoother, from proof-of-concept to full-scale production. By combining built-in intelligence, seamless interoperability and proven architectural patterns, RTI helps OEMs accelerate development, reduce risk and deliver reliable innovation at scale.
Sample Prompt in Connext AI:
Click image to view larger
Figure 1: The Connext Chatbot provides sample code for an architectural use case. This XML snippet refers to two types: ZoneStatus (for reporting status from each zone) and ZoneCommand (for sending commands to zones), creating participants for two zones and a central controller. Add more zones by duplicating the <domain_participant> block for each new zone.
About the Author:
Mihai Potoceanu is a Senior Product Manager at RTI with over a decade of experience in the automotive industry. He specializes in intelligent automotive systems through cutting-edge middleware solutions that power next-generation architectures. Mihai plays a key role in driving initiatives in the development of Software-Defined Vehicles (SDVs), leveraging technologies like Data Distribution Service (DDS) to drive innovation and connectivity. He holds a Master's degree in Analytical and Geometric Modeling Systems.