Pramod Kumar, a global technical specialist and principal engineer at General Motors, has been named the new president of Open Alliance, as the organization continues its work on developing open, globally adoptable ethernet communication standards for the automotive industry.
With over 20 years of experience across various technologies, Kumar has been involved in developing automotive Ethernet specifications since 2016. In his new role, he’ll help guide the direction of the organization and work to bring more original electronics manufacturers on board. Open Alliance said it remains focused on closing gaps in ethernet-based communication, which is key to enabling features such as autonomous driving and connected car technologies.
“I am delighted to have been appointed president of the Open Alliance,” said Kumar. “We are establishing automotive Ethernet as a universal, non-proprietary solution that meets the needs of all equipment manufacturers within the industry. Collaboration and shared learning are pivotal to this, and we will continue working with OEMs to address their challenges effectively and ensure interoperability of all available automotive Ethernet products in the market.
“The Open Alliance is uniquely placed to push new technologies and foster innovation. We resolve conflicts of interest and achieve consensus from our membership based on technical feasibility and pragmatic solutions to real-world problems encountered by all our engineering teams.”
Kumar succeeds Oliver Creighton, BMW’s vehicle cybersecurity specialist, as president for a two-year term. During Creighton’s leadership, Open Alliance continued to grow and worked closely with other industry groups to advance the use of ethernet in vehicle systems. The technical committees made progress in areas like security, remote control and software management, refining specifications designed for long-term use by OEMs.
Kumar’s appointment comes soon after Open Alliance’s acquisition of NAV Alliance, a move that brings together major automotive players to define, develop and test specifications that meet the evolving needs of drivers. NAV Alliance was originally formed to speed up the adoption of multi-gigabit ethernet and to build a collaborative ecosystem of manufacturers working toward shared industry standards. Automotive Ethernet is key to delivering the high bandwidth and low latency required for features like autonomous driving, infotainment systems and high-resolution cameras.
Said NAV Alliance president Amir Bar-Niv, “The acquisition of NAV Alliance is a significant step forward in solidifying automotive Ethernet as the networking technology for the future needs of the car. The development of open specifications and standards will see the effective rollout of next-generation applications from software-defined vehicle to autonomous driving.”
Read about how ethernet is enhancing climatic testing in the June issue of ATTI – due to land very soon.