Picture credit: (c) Hyundai Motor UK Ltd

Hyundai has become the latest automotive manufacturer to launch its connected car blueprint, collaborating with major networking and IT firms to develop a ‘hyper-connected and intelligent car’ concept.

The roadmap will see Hyundai focus its efforts on the 'Car to Life' initiative, aimed at taking forward the connected car era. The initiative will offer a knowledge hub to users and also enable them to analyse and use that information to improve owners' lives. Hyundai's planned connected car concept will not just be about converging communications technology, but also about connecting the car to the city, office and other cars.

The roadmap itself outlines four key fields of services for Hyundai to develop more intelligent and smarter cars that can get and process data faster. The mid-term to long-term development focus is on a range of key features, including autonomous driving, smart remote maintenance services, a connected Mobility Hub, Smart Traffic and security and data management for all vehicle elements.

The smart remote maintenance service, in particular, will remotely diagnose and rectify vehicle issues before they are made apparent. Autonomous driving will connect the vehicle to road and city infrastructure. Smart Traffic will take into consideration road and traffic conditions to minimise social costs, journey times and congestion. The Mobility Hub will feature a mobile hub with significant computing power for smarter and faster interaction between the car and its surroundings.

The short-term to mid-term development focus under the roadmap is to focus on technologies related to Smart Home Services and smartphone connectivity, and to set up the core infrastructure for future developments. The main areas of focus in R&D include cloud technology for processing power and collecting vehicle data, and in-vehicle networks for high-speed data transfer. Hyundai will research big data analytics as well as invest in connected car security.

Hyundai will also work on 'open innovation' collaborations with companies to co-develop connected car technologies. It has already set up the cloud system for the core infrastructure of connected cars.