The new NDS.Live specification is increasingly taking shape. Unlike previous standards, NDS.Live is no longer a conventional database, it is a distributed map system. In NDS.Live, navigation data is divided into small blocks based on the necessary timeliness of the data and the application for which it is needed. A first demonstration of the system was introduced at the NDS Conference in September 2020. Since then, the NDS.Live Joint Development team has been focusing on enhancing the available tile-based services with path-based services that are perfectly suited to meet the strong bandwidth requirements of upcoming Intelligent Speed Assist (ISA) applications. First results were presented during a dedicated Webinar series in early 2021.
At this stage, two new members of the NDS.Live Joint Development Team – Harman and TomTom – are ensuring that development of the standard will proceed even faster.
Harman, a founding member of the NDS association, already offers a rich and mature portfolio of NDS.Classic based premium infotainment solutions and has successfully implemented dozens of Digital Cockpit projects. Now, the company aims to build on this comprehensive know-how to seamlessly connect embedded, mobile and cloud service solutions. To that end, NDS.Live offers an interoperable and standardized format – powered by the NDS.Live Smart Layers. “We are therefore pleased to actively support the NDS.Live Joint Development Team and proud to be able to contribute to another chapter in the success story of the NDS standard”, said Martin Fischer at HARMAN.
TomTom, another founding member of the NDS association, can also build on the fact that many OEMs and Tier 1s are already benefiting from its successful NDS.Classic solutions. According to the map and navigation provider, NDS.Live can be viewed as a logical next step for OEMs and Tier 1s who are active with NDS.Classic and who desire to move to standards-based online solutions with minimal risk and effort. “The development of NDS.Live is gaining momentum, and TomTom will be actively engaged in validating the concepts and specifications,” said Volker Hiestermann at TomTom.
For future applications, the members of the development team are now working on dynamic data services, online routing services and horizon assist services. In addition, they are expanding the SmartLayer systems to support a broader range of data layers.
Several members of the NDS.Live Joint Development team have already begun integrating the NDS.Live service into their map production pipeline, which clearly indicates that NDS.Live will be hitting the roads very soon. The addition of TomTom and HARMAN will broaden the dev team’s ecosystem of validated NDS.Live specifications for services and clients even further, demonstrating interoperable use of distributed data across vendor boundaries – so that car manufacturers and automotive suppliers can develop and design their navigation applications even more efficiently in the future.
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