Changan Automobile Opens Era of Software-Defined Cars

Chongqing- "In the automotive industry, the future development direction is mainly in three aspects, including new energy, intelligence, and networking," said Mu Biqing, deputy general manager of Changan Automobile Big Data Center. "The future will be the era of 'software-defined cars.'"

Network collaborative manufacturing platform

As the first national intelligent manufacturing demonstration enterprise in China's automobile industry, Changan Automobile researches key technologies through the research and development (R&D) and application demonstration of the network collaborative manufacturing platform.

According to Mu, compared with traditional business models, the network collaborative manufacturing platform provides end-to-end dynamic information synchronization, transparency, and visualization for the operation link.

This reduces the cost of supply chain collaboration, improves information collaboration efficiency, provides a basis for digital decision-making for management, and enhances the efficiency of enterprise resource allocation.

Additionally, the entire factory operation has become transparent and intelligent through the interconnection of people, machines, and things.

5G networks + Industrial Internet

Compared with traditional industrial networks, what are the advantages of 5G networks?

According to Peng Xiaogang, senior manager of the Smart Manufacturing Technology Research Institute of Changan Automobile Manufacturing Center, with the application of 5G, the network performance is more flexible and stable.

"The traditional wired industrial network is complicated and inflexible, which has great limitations," said Peng. "The 5G network's broadband delay is less than 20 ms, which can well support a flexible and agile manufacturing process."

"Furthermore, compared with traditional network cables, the 5G network workshop is wirelessly connected," said Peng. "Each device node only needs one set of 5G modules, which reduces the construction cost by 20%."

Combining the technical architecture of "5G+Industrial Internet", Chang'an Automobile has built its own Chang'an smart factory management platform with the application of 5G, which realizes an independent development for value mining of manufacturing data. It gets rid of the dependence on third-party system suppliers for the digital transformation of Chinese brand car companies. This not only saves costs but also improves efficiency.

Changan Automobile currently has an engineering and technical team composed of more than 12,000 people from 27 countries worldwide and has 14 Product Innovation Researchers and Technology Centers.