GPU-accelerated processing is vital to many automotive and embedded systems. Safety-critical and real-time applications have different requirements and deployment priorities than consumer applications, but they often are developed using GPU APIs that have been primarily designed for use in games.
Vulkan SC (Safety Critical) is a newly released open standard to streamline the use of GPUs in markets where functional safety and hitch-free performance are essential.
NVIDIA helped lead the creation of the Vulkan SC 1.0 API and is now shipping production drivers on its NVIDIA DRIVE and NVIDIA Jetson platforms.
In this EE Times Europe article, Neil Trevett describes how the need for graphics and compute acceleration in embedded markets is growing. Cameras and sensor arrays are increasingly central to many use cases in diverse industries, ranging from automotive to industrial, and are generating increasingly rich data streams that require sophisticated processing. At the same time, advanced user interfaces are being developed using high-quality 3D graphics and even augmented-reality technology. However, the need to deploy accelerated processing, combined with the complexities of safety-critical certification, has created a confusing landscape of processors, accelerators, compilers, APIs, and libraries. That has driven up integration costs for embedded accelerators, which in turn has constrained innovation and time-to-market efficiencies.
Open standards have an important role in helping hardware and software vendors navigate this complex technology environment. Acceleration standards for the embedded market can enable cross-platform software reusability, decouple software and hardware development for easier deployment and integration of new components, provide cross-generation reusability, and facilitate field upgradability. Such standards reduce costs, shorten time to market, and lower the barriers to using advanced techniques such as inferencing and vision acceleration in compelling real-world products.
Khronos Group President, Neil Trevett, shares how open standards have an important role mitigating the complexities of safety-critical certification in a confusing landscape of processors, accelerators, compilers, APIs, and libraries, that drive up integration costs for embedded accelerators, which in turn has constrained innovation and time-to-market efficiencies.
AUTOSAR and The Khronos Group have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and entered into a collaboration liaison to foster synergy between the two organizations to encourage standardization in the field of Automotive and Future Intelligent Mobility. This joint technical collaboration between AUTOSAR and Khronos is intended to coordinate common requirements and developments with a focus on accelerated graphics and computing in safety critical markets.
Today, The Khronos Group announced the public release of the royalty-free Vulkan Safety-Critical (SC) 1.0 API Specification to enable safety-critical industries to deploy state-of-the-art GPU graphics and compute acceleration while meeting the highest levels of functional safety requirements. The Vulkan SC Conformance Test Suite is also freely available in open source, and multiple vendors have officially-conformant Vulkan SC 1.0 implementations. Industry feedback on the specification is welcome at the Vulkan SC specification GitHub repository.
Andrew Richards, CEO and Co-founder of Codeplay Software, presents the “Can We Have Both Safety and Performance in AI for Autonomous Vehicles?” tutorial at the May 2019 Embedded Vision Summit. Andrews presentation includes discussion on how SYCL, OpenCL and Vulkan can play into Safety and Performance in vehicles.
Airbus Defence and Space and Core Avionics & Industrial Inc. announced today, at Aerospace TechWeek in Munich, a technology partnership to enable the use of GPU compute in airborne systems and applications that require the highest RTCA DO-178C/EUROCAE ED-12C DAL A safety certifications. Based on the use of CoreAVI’s platforms for safety certifiable applications, including its VkCore™ SC Vulkan®-based compute driver architecture, the two companies will work together to fully define and be ready to deliver software and systems that perform safety critical GPU compute operations to enable the most advanced autonomous systems and other avionics applications that can take advantage of GPU compute functions. CoreAVI chairs Khronos’ Vulkan SC Working Group and is driving forward new standards to support true GPU compute capabilities using graphics processors.
Neil Trevett, president of the Khronos Group will be chairing a discussion group at Operational Safe Systems for Level 5 Automation (OSS5) on February 28th in San Francisco. Discussions will explore if existing open standards a reasonable starting point for safety critical APIs. The newly formed Vulkan SC Working Group makes a compelling starting point for safety certifiable access to GPU acceleration for graphics and compute.
The Khronos Group today announces the creation of the Vulkan Safety Critical Working Group, to enable safety critical industries to take advantage of advancements in GPU graphics and compute acceleration, and display control, at the highest levels of safety integrity. Safety critical graphics are a key component for industries such as automotive, avionics, medical and energy. As display requirements become more advanced, safety critical graphics APIs must evolve to meet the industries’ needs. Now, automotive and other industries are seeking advanced GPU graphics, compute and display functionality that can be deployed in safety critical systems. In response to this industry demand, this new Khronos Working Group will create open, royalty-free API standards based on the existing Vulkan API specification to enable safety critical industries to utilize advanced graphics and compute acceleration. To best suit these market’s needs, the new API will aim to be compatible with industry standards for safety critical software, such as RTCA DO-178C Level A / EASA ED-12C Level A (avionics); FACE (Future Airborne Capability Environment) (avionics); and ISO 26262 ASIL D (automotive).
The Khronos Group, an open consortium of leading hardware and software companies creating advanced acceleration standards, today announces the creation of the Vulkan Safety Critical Working Group, to enable safety critical industries to take advantage of advancements in GPU graphics and compute acceleration, and display control, at the highest levels of safety integrity.
