Receiver Architecture, Multimedia Car Platform (MCP), Technical Report, Deliverable 8B, March 2001

Kurzfassung

This document presents the second and full version of the terminal architecture for the Multimedia Car Platform. It describes architectural insights and motivations, an overview of the API framework , the status of the MHP (Multimedia Home Platform) and necessary extensions for an evolution towards MCP. This document completes the preliminary version Part A. The first mobile multimedia terminal in Europe and possibly in the world will enable the users to select from a bouquet of applications and data conveyed over different network topologies and services. The user should be unaware of which network is actually used to get the information through the most adequate network depending on the service necessities. Inspired by the success of the Internet, the MCP terminal should be an open platform, allowing for a wide bouquet of x-tainment applications. The Multimedia Car Platform will be strongly based on the Multimedia Home Platform specification defined under DVB, and thus support Java™ applications. However, the fact that we encounter different requirements pertaining to a terminal operated in a moving car has wide reaching impacts on the MCP specification. Therefore, necessary extensions to the MHP are examined. This comprises additional APIs, relating to navigation/positioning functions and maps, speech I/O, phone operation, interaction channel support, and various forms of in-car communication and access to car relevant information. The drastic differences regarding security between systems like MCP - where human life and safety are at stake - and the “home internet” require a technical platform with enhanced security and certification models that allow for various levels of trusted applications with different levels of access to the platform’s functions. The security model described in this document allows a trusted centre to finely define this framework, taking into account legal, usability, integrity, privacy, and other concerns. It works by introducing the concept of application specific “policeman” that guard the platform and thus the human users. The extended application management concept includes extended life-cycle management, support for stored applications and stand-alone applications, more detailed priority handling and a refined resources management. The use of Jini™ technology in MCP as an extended profile can bring many advantages to the car platform. It allows for a high flexibility in adding future devices, applications, which had not been foreseen a priori. We envision a Jini API that wraps Jini services such as Lookup, Join, or Discover in a secure fashion and makes these available to trusted applications and devices.