IBM Delivers Cloud IoT Platform for Automobiles
The future of the automotive industry hinges upon its abilities to integrate sophisticated technology into the dashboards of our cars and trucks. IBM has teamed with Continental to bring to life a cutting edge cloud platform for automobile makers.
With an automotive cloud, drivers can gain intelligence on the operating conditions of their vehicle. For example, the cloud could tell you when vehicle maintenance is due. IBM’s automotive cloud could also gather data on road conditions as well as use satellite data and other publicly available data to help guide the drive along on the best course for the trip.
Officially called IBM’s Internet of Things Automotive solution, the platform provides sensors to auto manufacturers that grabs data from vehicle itself. By 2020, over 90% of the vehicles manufactured will have some sort of ability built in that beams information back up to the cloud. The cloud can also provide drivers with parking information, for those who commute in big cities that have limited parking choices.
“With the significant increase in connected cars, automotive manufacturers have the ability to take near-real time data and put it to good use for drivers in a variety of ways — from finding the nearest parking space and most efficient route, to maintenance alerts that help drivers expect the unexpected,” says Dirk Wollschlaeger, GM of Global Automotive Industry at IBM.
“By combining data directly from the car with other sources, the insights derived through the IBM IoT for Automotive solution have the potential to change how we interact with our vehicles moving forward,” adds Wollschlaeger.
IBM’s Automotive Cloud platform will be hosted within its SoftLayer infrastructure. IBM says that applications can be built for the automotive platform, claiming that the new IoT development platform supports short application dev cycles ranging from rapid prototyping to scalable productive solutions.
