Towards OFDMA-based Ethernet for future in-vehicle communication

Autonomous driving and connected car trends have pushed the scalability of the wiring harness in a domain-controller based networks to its limits. A solution is a zonal architecture which organizes the harness and ECU in spacial zones. For the interconnection of the spacial zones a high performance backbone is mandatory. In this context, the ERIKA project focuses on the development of an OFDMA-based in-vehicle communication backbone. OFDMA, known from wireless (LTE) or powerline communication, provides high performance by multiple simultaneous transmissions over a twisted wire pair using time and frequency multiplexing. In this work, we provide an overview of the project activities and introduce OFDMA-based Ethernet mechanisms for automotive systems. These allow to reduce cabling overhead, handling different traffic classes, support agile software integration, and increase robustness to avoid failures.