From knock-off old-man's electric vehicles to industrial giant

Chapter 282 Super Star Flash Key, UWB Chip
In early November.

The outside world is still immersed in the atmosphere of the approaching year-end.

The year-end wrap-up work is also extremely busy, with various tasks in hand. On the market side, we maintain the principle of ensuring quality and delivery. The sales volume of Xingchen L7 in January remained stable at more than 7,500 units, which has firmly established itself as one of the top five SUVs in the 300,000-400,000 yuan price range.

After significant discounts at stores, Highlander sales finally rebounded, but it was no longer able to compete with Star in terms of public opinion.

A month later, the R&D department also proposed a new solution to the problem of unlocking user keys.

As the person in charge of the vehicle infotainment and communication project, Zhao Yang first internally rejected the idea of ​​continuing to invest in the Bluetooth module.

The reason why it is prone to disconnection, interference, and occasional failure is that...

The main issues are the limited range and insufficient interference handling capabilities of BLE4.2, as well as problems with the channel selection algorithm. While BT 5.0 introduced CSA2, which improved upon these issues, its adoption rate is still far from sufficient.

In addition, issues such as environmental interference and mobile phone-level limitations, especially Android and iOS system permission APIs, persist.

The idea that President Xu mentioned last time about making mobile phones really excited him!

A very exciting and daring direction also emerged in my mind.

In the past, domestic car companies simply followed in the footsteps of foreign car companies and copied their work.

But now that they have the potential to build their own phones, they can certainly adopt a precedent that the industry has never set before and develop their own unlocking solution that is unprecedented in the industry!
"Mr. Xu, the principle of Bluetooth key unlocking mainly relies on the strength of the received signal. If measured by our high internal standards, the positioning accuracy is quite poor, with a range of one or two meters. Furthermore, it is difficult to resist interference and is vulnerable to relay attacks..."

Fearing that Xu Yi might not understand, Zhao Yang summarized it in the most concise language.

These problems are common in the current field of wireless key technology, and have been proven and discussed in papers abroad.

Then he took out another set of materials.

"To achieve precise ranging, from a positioning range of one or two meters to centimeter-level, or even between 1 and 2 centimeters, accurate positioning and unlocking are generally required. This involves using pulse wireless signals and measuring the time of flight of the reflected signals to determine the precise distance..."

This refers to the so-called UWB technology. Around 13-14, German automakers and BMW publicly discussed the possibility of UWB keys entering vehicles. This extremely short pulse signal with a wide spectral density provides extremely high anti-interference and ranging accuracy, arguably ten times better than existing Bluetooth solutions. Furthermore, it offers stronger protection against relay attacks.

Zhao Yang then produced another document, saying, "We can use the existing DW1000 chip from abroad as the core to realize the function of a UWB transceiver. The only drawback is that the cost is higher than that of a Bluetooth key, and there is currently no similar implementation solution in the industry. When it is actually applied, we may be the only ones."

……

Inside the office, everyone else listened with wide eyes.

What the hell?
UWB?
They've never heard of this before!

That idea is just too crazy!
Completely abandon Bluetooth?
"Wait, you mean we won't need Bluetooth keys to unlock Star Cars anymore?" Yu Nian was slightly astonished; this was unbelievable.

"No, no, the UWB key I proposed will still integrate Bluetooth functionality. Because BLE signals are characterized by low power consumption and wide coverage, they can be used to achieve remote sensing and wake-up, and then distance measurement can be performed using a high-power UWB signal."

In this way, the two can be perfectly combined to achieve a unified solution, allowing our future car keys to simultaneously possess a security chip and three technologies: NFC/BLE/UWB.

Zhao Yang reiterated the product's design concept.

"..."

As Yu Nian listened to this series of events, he felt his head was spinning.

I don't understand it, but it sounds pretty impressive.

He couldn't help but turn his gaze to President Xu.

Xu Yi's expression was very serious. When he heard the words "UWB", he was already deep in thought.

Nothing else.

He really knows a lot about UWB.

It is indeed a niche technology at present, and it has hardly been applied in various industries, and no one cares about it.

But this was the situation in 18.

Nineteen years later, Apple released the iPhone 11 series, and everything changed.

The 11 series was the first to utilize UWB technology, making the company the world's first to introduce UWB chips into smart devices, playing a significant role in precise distance measurement in smartwatches and various connected devices. In the first year or two after its release, it was hailed as a cutting-edge technology.

Then the automotive industry followed suit, and domestic mobile phone manufacturers and smart devices also adopted UWB technology to achieve accurate distance measurement and unlocking functions.

It can be said.

This thing is the future industry standard for automotive-grade digital keys.

As for the StarFlash technology used in later generations, the difference between it and UWB is that StarFlash was originally intended to replace traditional Bluetooth and Wi-Fi applications to achieve whole-house device interconnection, low-latency control, and massive concurrent connections.

In terms of "precise ranging and low power consumption and low latency" in the field of automotive-grade unlocking, it's hard to say that it has any additional advantages.

After all, the high power consumption issue of UWB was only based on the first-generation DW1000 chip.

Twenty-four years later, the latest generation of ultra-wideband (UWB) modules can achieve a coverage range of over 120 meters, with power consumption reduced by about 25 times compared to Bluetooth and latency reduced by 60 times, while retaining the established advantages of superior performance compared to Wi-Fi.

In other words, if StarCraft starts with UWB and lays out its plans in this field in advance, it can definitely develop into the Internet of Everything and develop StarFlash... no, it can develop StarCraft's own "Super StarFlash" solution a few years ahead of time.

Achieving full ecosystem coverage across multiple fields, including wireless audio streaming, computer peripherals, wearable devices, robots, industrial control systems, IoT devices, and even medical interfaces, it is not impossible for China to completely rival or even surpass Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in the future.

This is an extremely large-scale business ecosystem!

……

"Mr. Xu, currently, the mainstream foreign UWB chips and modules are basically sourced from the Decawave DW1000 system in Ireland. The cost has already been calculated. If you think it's feasible, we can first use the DW1000 to make a UWB key pre-research sample..."

Zhao Yang was still talking.

He felt somewhat uneasy.

The investment and effort required to develop a new UWB key solution is significantly greater than that required for traditional digital keys.

After all, it's just a simple wireless unlocking issue.

Their cars also support physical key signals and NFC unlocking, so going to all this trouble to implement UWB might not necessarily bring much positive benefit.

"Technically speaking, it's great and an improvement... but I think users probably won't notice it. At worst, if Bluetooth fails, just touch the NFC with your phone and it'll be the same. Besides, the probability of Bluetooth failing isn't very high; it only happens in a few scenarios."

Yu Nian also spoke up, expressing his opposition.

“Yes, who would be so foolish as to attack Bluetooth key relays? It’s unnecessary, isn’t it? Users don’t even understand this. We’re already very advanced in key unlocking,” someone else chimed in.

The Starry Sky L7 supports physical key + NFC + Bluetooth unlocking, while joint venture cars priced around 200,000 RMB on the market don't even have Bluetooth keys if you don't opt ​​for them.

……

"Let's do it! We'll make the UWB key." Xu Yi's voice drowned out the murmurs of the crowd.

Then he uttered a sentence that sent a chill down the spines of the people who had just been divided!
"But I think your ideas are too conservative, only focusing on precise distance measurement and safety. If we can already measure distances down to the centimeter level, we don't necessarily have to stop at mobile phones or keys. Let's just make a wearable device..."

For example, smartwatches can unlock via gestures by detecting claps and finger snaps.

Face-to-face gesture control for summoning the car, remote control of the trunk, doors, and power tailgate—that's also an application, isn't it?

Xu Yi proposed a highly advanced "scenario mode".

—The user snaps their fingers at the car to automatically unlock the doors.

— Users can clap their hands in the air to automatically lift and close the tailgate.

—And scenarios where you can control a car remotely by using gestures.

……

Just moments ago, some employees were saying that car keys couldn't possibly be perceived by users, and now they're imagining such an extremely futuristic scenario—my head is spinning!

(End of this chapter)