Imagine a scenario wherein all cars and trucks are inter-linked with a common platform. Information about an issue with a car located in Mumbai would be stored in a database, which can be used by a car located in Guwahati for avoiding the mistake. Users of cars can get predictive maintenance notifications based on the common knowledge about all cars.
This can be soon become a reality, as Tata Motors have partnered with Microsoft for bringing their advance Connected Vehicles Platform in India.
In fact, the first such car from Tata Motors powered by connected vehicle technology would be unveiled at 87th Geneva International Motor Show on March 7, 2017.
Earlier last month, Tata Motors became the first automobile company from India to test self-driving cars. As per indications coming in, self-driving cars from Tata would be powered with connected vehicles platform.
In a statement, Guenter Butschek, CEO & MD, Tata Motors, said: “We are using Microsoft’s connected vehicle technologies on Azure intelligent cloud to bring digital lives of our customers into cars they drive”
What Is Microsoft’s Connected Vehicles Platform?
Built on Azure Cloud platform, Microsoft announced the launch of their Connected Vehicle Platform last month. Powered with features like the virtual assistant, business applications like Office 365, Skype and more, this is the futuristic outlook, showcasing what a digital car would be in coming years.
This advanced cloud platform for vehicles can improve car’s productivity by predicting its performance, alerting its owner about maintenance requirements, advanced gesture-based navigation, in-built auto-drive mode and creation of a database which will include all known issues related with similar vehicles, and using that intelligence for the benefit of all.
In a way, this technology smartly connects Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things platform and advanced machine learning to create a safer and more efficient environment for vehicles.
5 Main Tasks Of Connected Vehicle Technology
As per statements issued by Microsoft, their connected vehicle technology is not an in-car operating system, something which Android auto is attempting to do. Rather, it’s an agile, live cloud system which has 5 main purposes:
- Predictive maintenance
- Improved in-car productivity
- Advanced navigation
- Customer insights
- Autonomous driving capabilities
As per the details available, every connected car would be fitted with sensors, which will gather an enormous amount of data. This data would be converted into intelligence by big data and would be applied to assist all connected cars in the platform.
Renault-Nissan Alliance became the first automobile company to partner with Microsoft for implementing their connected vehicle platform.