In November, Donut Lab introduced its modular technology platform, offering a library of compatible components, such as an electric motor, battery pack, and on-board vehicle computer. These components have been designed to operate together without any manual integration work, which significantly accelerates and simplifies the development of electric vehicles.
Credit: Donut Lab
Now, at the CES trade show, the company is revealing more about the features of the upcoming software layer of the Donut platform. The Donut platform aims to speed up the development of vehicle software by 10-fold while increasing vehicle safety and testing through new technologies. Donut Lab says it is developing the world's first no-code environment for vehicles, which means that, in the future, all software logic for cars and drones can be done with a graphical user interface instead of traditional programming-based code. This significantly reduces the number of errors, increases vehicle safety and accelerates development work.
“Although the physical components of the Donut platform, such as the motor and battery pack, are already revolutionizing the automotive industry, a completely new software layer has also been part of the plan from the very beginning. With the help of an intelligent software layer, we can automatically integrate physical components, but in addition to this, we are now developing future software development solutions that will make vehicle development significantly more efficient and agile. At the core of all of this is advanced artificial intelligence, and in the future, the artificial intelligence features of the Donut platform will improve vehicle design, development, testing and validation in unimaginable ways,” says Marko Lehtimäki from Donut Lab.
Unique collaboration automates the development of HMI interfaces for vehicles
Donut Lab's vision for the Donut platform is to create a dynamic ecosystem of technology partners that fosters continuous innovation and enhances vehicle development methods. The platform's scalability and seamless integration of third-party technologies, both software and hardware, are designed to bring this vision to life.
Donut Lab's strategic collaboration with the international software company Qt is a significant step towards its vision. At the CES trade show, Qt introduced its new Qt Accelerate solution, a game-changer that will automate and streamline the development of HMI (Human-Machine Interface) user interfaces for electric vehicles. This innovative solution will soon be integrated into the Donut platform, further enhancing its capabilities.
“With the help of Qt Accelerate, the development of HMI interfaces will become automated and significantly more efficient. The technology to be integrated into the Donut platform will recognize the vehicle configuration and will be able to create an HMI that matches the vehicle's actual features. This takes place completely automatically and therefore requires no manual work,” says Petteri Holländer, Senior Vice President, Ventures, Qt Group.
"Qt Accelerate offers an extremely fast and efficient way to create HMIs fully automatically without programming and is designed specifically for the needs of the automotive industry. Our collaboration provides significant advantages to the development of vehicles, and it is also the first step in building a broader ecosystem for the Donut platform," Lehtimäki continues.