Audi at 2015 CES

Audi, a leading and driving force in all technology areas relating to electronics and electrics, made a splash with a host of new technologies at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Audi’s presence at the event centered on the car’s communication with its surroundings. Focus topics included piloted driving, new Audi connect solutions, new infotainment modules, control and display concepts and new developments in lighting technology. Highlights included the hybrid-powered Audi prologue piloted driving concept car and the interior model of the new Audi Q7.

Extremely convenient: driver assistance system and piloted driving
Driver assistance systems make driving more pleasant, safer and more efficient. They are available in almost all of Audi’s model lines. Debuting in the Audi Q7, to be launched in 2015, are groundbreaking solutions such as the Predictive Efficiency Assistant, the Trailer Assistant and adaptive cruise control including a congestion assistant.

Audi will introduce its new technologies for piloted driving before the end of this decade. These can take over driving in certain situations if the driver wishes them to do so. Audi has been performing pioneering work in this area for years and shown how thrilling piloted driving can be. In October 2014, the Audi RS 7 piloted driving concept lapped the Grand Prix circuit at Hockenheim at speeds up to 240 km/h with no driver on board, making it the sportiest piloted driving car in the world.

Audi has presented its solutions for piloted driving and driving in congested areas at CES in previous years. At this year’s CES, the brand set another milestone with the Audi A7 piloted driving concept featuring a wide range of standard and close-to-standard sensors, which drove from Stanford in Silicon Valley via Bakersfield to Las Vegas, a 900km drive.

Farsighted: Audi’s lighting innovations

Audi has been a leader in automobile lighting technology for years. Groundbreaking innovations available in several current model lines include matrix LED headlights for intelligent and flexible illumination of the road surface as well as dynamic turning signals.

Another world first is the laser highbeam available in Audi’s high-end R8 LMX edition model. Its range is more than 500 feet. At CES, Audi will introduce Audi Matrix laser technology as the next step, a laser light providing high-resolution and finely tuned illumination of the roadway ahead. Another innovation is construction area lighting. This projects two markedly bright light strips onto the road, thus visualizing the car’s width.

Attractive and intuitive: controls and displays in the TT and the Q7

Clear and intuitive operation has always been a strength of Audi. At CES, the brand showed the most recent advances in control and display technology as available in the new Audi TT and the upcoming Audi Q7.

One highlight was the Audi virtual cockpit. This fully‑digital combined instrument provides the driver with minutely rendered, brilliant 3D graphics of all information and offers different display modes to choose from on its 12.3‑inch TFT monitor. Audi virtual cockpit is powered by the T 30 graphics processor made by Audi’s cooperation partner NVDIA.

Audi also presented innovations in control technology The TT and the new Q7 will feature MMI terminals with an all-new interface logic. This will emulate the concept of modern smartphones, where flat hierarchies replace sprawling menu trees.

All-round networking: Audi connect

The term Audi connect covers all applications and developments networking the car with its owner, the Internet, public infrastructure and other automobiles. This is another field of technology where Audi continually expands its lead.

A central hardware element, the Audi connect module, connects the car with the internet via LTE, the fastest available transmission standard. The car’s passengers can connect their mobile devices to a WLAN hotspot, which also provides the driver with customised online in-car services from the Audi connect portfolio. One of the innovations in this area is Online Media Streaming, which offers access to Napster and Aupeo! music services, and online updating of the navigational map.

Additional services will be available in the new Audi Q7, among them the Audi smartphone interface. Depending on whether a customer connects an iOS or an Android device, the interface will call up the Apple Car Play or Android Auto platform onto the car’s MMI monitor. At the core of the offering is an enormous selection of music titles. In addition, both platforms provide navigation and messaging functions and appointment reminders.

Future car‑to‑X technologies are another key element of Audi connect. These will enable Audi models to interact with traffic lights in a city to navigate traffic faster and more efficiently. Another solution will permit cashless payment in a parking garage or at a kerbside meter, a third one will identify speed limits and spot dangers and also relay the corresponding information to other cars.

Another innovation presented by Audi at CES was the Audi mobile key. Here, a smartphone or a smartwatch provides access to the vehicle, making them highly flexible complements to existing keys. The mobile key uses Near Field Communication (NFC), which is available even when the mobile device’s battery is empty.

Powered by NVIDIA: infotainment

At CES, Audi showcased attractive innovations in infotainment. One of these can be seen in the Audi phone box in the new Q7, which permits easy pairing of a smartphone. It can now inductively charge compatible phones under the Qi standard.

Another first is 3D sound. In the new Audi Q7, the premium sound systems from Bose and Bang & Olufsen integrate additional speakers which open up height as a spatial dimension. A sophisticated algorithm extracts information for the third dimension from conventional stereo or 5.1 recordings and processes it for reproduction via the speaker array.

Audi sets new standards in infotainment with its Modular Infotainment Matrix and its technology network. The brand’s revolutionary approach involving a modularised electronic architecture brings Audi’s development cycles closer to those in the fast-paced consumer electronics business.

A look into the future: Audi models at CES

Four spectacular cars rounded off Audi’s presence in Las Vegas. They were the TT Roadster, RS 7 Sportback and R8 LMX production models as well as the Audi prologue piloted driving concept car which was purpose-built for CES.