my country has established a relatively complete Internet of Things (IoT) industrial system, with some sectors already achieving a certain market scale. While the gap between China and foreign countries in network communication technologies and industrial support capabilities is relatively small, the gap in sensor and RFID manufacturing, high-end software, and integration services is relatively large. Although industries such as instrumentation, embedded systems, and software and integration services have reached a considerable scale, truly IoT-related equipment and services are still in their infancy.
If the internet connects people, then the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) adds cars, allowing people to communicate with their vehicles and enabling cars to proactively display information about themselves.
Domestically, the Internet of Vehicles (IoV), as a manifestation of the Internet of Things (IoT), has passed the national expert group's review and is expected to receive an investment of 200 billion yuan. It is considered by the domestic academic community to be the first truly feasible IoT system. IoV, as an important application of IoT in the road transportation industry, is also one of the industries where IoT applications are relatively well-developed. Internationally, IoV may be referred to as the Internet of Vehicles or Vehicular Network. The development of IoV in Europe is significantly faster than in North America. Projects led by governments and involving automakers in several European countries (Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany), such as Telematics, and university literature, appear frequently online. In the United States, the Department of Transportation's Connected Vehicles project can be found.
The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) has broad industry segmentation needs, but the development of each segment is uneven. Overall, China's IoV industry is still in its early stages, with immature technology, standards, products, and markets. In terms of segmented markets, school buses, long-distance buses, tank trucks, public buses, logistics vehicles, medical vehicles, official vehicles, and even private cars will become key areas in the IoV market. However, due to significant differences in policy inclinations, technological and market maturity, and market demand among different segments, the development gap in the IoV market is substantial.
Research shows that "policy-led, technology-driven, and demand-driven" will become the main development model for the connected vehicle industry in China.
In the Internet of Things (IoT), for example, when you go to the supermarket to buy groceries, the "tags" on the vegetables will display their health and freshness. These "tags" can be chips or sensors, replacing the ordinary paper labels we see now. Similarly, in the Internet of Vehicles (IoV), the onboard terminals installed in the vehicle can obtain vehicle information in real time, and the owner can learn about various parameters and health status of the vehicle in real time through some form.
To address the acquisition, transmission, utilization, and control of this information, Shanghai Chenhan Electronics and many other R&D and design companies with years of experience in the field of connected vehicles have proposed the concept of a connected vehicle gateway. The introduction of the connected vehicle gateway has enabled the separation of data services from connected vehicle application development.
The following section will examine CARMAN, a highly intelligent and multifunctional in-vehicle terminal and vehicle networking gateway product developed and designed by Shanghai Chenhan Electronics over many years, to understand the design concepts, workflow, and functional applications of the entire vehicle networking gateway.
CARMAN's design concept is to use existing wireless communication methods (TD-SCDMA/TD-LTE, WCDMA, CDMA2000 (EVDO)) as a platform to integrate the Internet and mobile communication networks, providing a unified interface for terminals, enterprise applications, and even government applications.
The system architecture diagram of CARMAN is as follows:
The gateway architecture diagram of CARMAN is as follows:
CARMAN, designed to meet market demands and based on the national standard GB-T19056-2003 (Ministry of Transport industry standard), integrates digital video compression and storage with 3G wireless transmission technology (Digital Video Record). It combines GPS positioning and monitoring, a vehicle driving recorder, large-capacity SD card storage, driver IC card identification, bus stop announcements, multiple data interfaces, in-vehicle Bluetooth hands-free voice calling, reversing monitoring, and a Wi-Fi hotspot. It also features in-vehicle MP3/MP4 players, in-vehicle audio-visual equipment, and an in-vehicle amplifier for passenger comfort and entertainment. The 3G video transmission technology offers dual-stream transmission with adjustable speed, resulting in faster transmission and clearer, smoother video. Captured and alarm images can be uploaded via WCDMA or CDMA. It enables real-time monitoring of moving targets and real-time transmission of monitoring video and images. It employs H.264 video compression technology, with image resolutions available in D1, Half, D1, or CIF. The system's built-in multimedia driving record analysis software can achieve simultaneous playback of 4-channel images, conditional playback, editing and storage, character overlay, geographic information and driving record overlay, event analysis, and record extraction functions. The integrated structure greatly reduces product size and expands performance, aligning with the future trend of all-in-one vehicle networking gateways.
China possesses hundreds of millions of motor vehicles, the world's largest and most extensive communication network, and abundant bandwidth resources, giving it a significant advantage in developing the Internet of Vehicles (IoV). However, in reality, my country has not yet formed a truly meaningful IoV industry model or reached a point of explosive growth, even though the global IoV market is still in its early stages. While IoV technology has made some breakthroughs in niche areas such as long-distance buses and school buses, it has not yet entered the consumer market on a large scale, and the true IoV characteristics in people's daily lives have not yet materialized. This has created two problems: first, the market is limited, preventing the formation of large-scale and standardized operations, resulting in high application costs for IoV technology; second, the lack of horizontal and vertical industry chains leads to insufficient specialization and high transaction costs. Currently, enterprise-level IoV solutions suffer from problems such as redundant development, long development cycles, lack of core technologies, uncertain business models, inconsistent standards, and software and hardware incompatibility.
The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) has the potential to form a huge market, but it will take a long time to cultivate this potential into a real market. The key is to create new business models and new markets through technological and application innovation. To solve these problems, a new solution can be envisioned: operators build the IoV platform, and then R&D service companies with core technologies, such as Chenhan Electronics, provide unified standards, clarify business models, improve the industry chain, and enhance service quality. This would effectively resolve the aforementioned contradictions.
