Marelli Increases In-Vehicle Personalization with Sonatus, Shortening Future Time-to-market

Global independent automotive supplier, Marelli has a strong and established track record in innovation and manufacturing excellence. The company is focused on co-creating the future of mobility with its customers and technology partners by bringing innovations and emerging technology to the automotive industry. Marelli, automotive software supplier Sonatus, and AWS are working together to drive the future of automotive by widening access to dynamic in-vehicle personalization. Through working with Sonatus, Marelli has built the infrastructure to deliver lifetime value to the vehicle’s owner or fleet manager, all powered by an AWS integration for faster development and deployment, giving them an edge over competitors.

In the current automotive industry landscape, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) strive to think innovatively about tactics to retain customers and grow their loyalty. As software becomes the deciding factor for customers of software-defined vehicles (SDVs), OEMs need flexible, responsive infrastructure that empowers them to build new features that deliver a lifetime value to the vehicle’s owner.

Already offering customizable cockpit modules and other products that enhance the driver experience, Marelli, as a strong OEMs’ partner, sought to deepen the capabilities of their personalization offerings. This led them to search for a collaborative partner who could support developing new vehicle personalization features for customers. Marelli understood presenting new features in a timely manner meant they needed to determine the optimal product development workflow, one that was streamlined, agile, high-performing, cost-reducing, and aligned to Marelli’s cloud strategy with Amazon Web Services (AWS). Marelli began working with AWS to realize the underlying benefits of harnessing the power of the cloud.

Early engagements between Marelli and AWS Partner Sonatus sparked the idea alignment of leveraging the cloud to meet business goals while fostering a solid relationship foundation to build a range of capabilities. Marelli was impressed by Sonatus’ highly flexible, easy-to-use Sonatus Vehicle Platform, especially Sonatus Automator, and its intuitive cloud interface. Sonatus brings in-vehicle expertise gained through the large-scale deployment of their products into over a million vehicles spanning more than a dozen models to date from three leading OEMs: Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis.

Marelli leverages the Sonatus Automator software on AWS in their cockpit domain control unit, enabling vehicle-wide configuration access and automated vehicle functions. Powered by routines defined by OEM engineers and customizations by users through apps or the vehicle IVI system, this provides a tailored driving experience that’s crafted using an owner’s preferences for vehicle comfort, convenience, and driving style. Sonatus Automator also extends the possibility for high-level personalization to a broader range of cars, increasing access to a premium feature without the premium car price tag and growing the market for everyone involved.

Running on in-vehicle software and in the cloud on AWS, Sonatus Automator provides Marelli with an orchestration framework that can be used to create event-triggered automation workflows that can be deployed instantly. Sonatus acts as the connective tissue that automates the connection of input gathered from in-vehicle Marelli sensors to a consumer's profile in the AWS to execute a tailored cockpit experience. Users can personalize their vehicles in new ways via direct interaction in the in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) system or next-generation vehicle smartphone apps powered by cloud-connected APIs.

Sonatus Automator’s ability to call out to external services via API, such as Amazon Alexa or other third-party services, also provides the flexibility for automation to grow beyond the inside of the vehicle. Sonatus and Marelli share a vision of a world where in-vehicle automation enhances the driver's experience with sequences focused on well-being without a deliberate need for driver interaction. Sonatus Automator powers policies that are triggered by specific events, such as when a car gets within a certain geofence, into an action like turning on exterior lights so the location is safer when the driver arrives.

The solution leverages many AWS services, including Amazon Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon Route 53, Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), AWS Identity and Access Management (AWS IAM), AWS Secrets Manager, AWS Systems Manager, AWS Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR).

By working with Sonatus and AWS, Marelli has established the ability to orchestrate customization of their cockpits for an improved driving experience. Additionally, Sonatus Automator has shortened Marelli’s future time-to-market with its introduction of automation routines that tie multiple functions together with event-driven conditional logic to create new vehicle features that can be customized to individual preferences and needs. This has empowered the Marelli team with agility for quicker product development in response to changing trends and customer interests.

Looking forward, Marelli plans to continue developing new features for deep personalization to add in-vehicle value and continue working with Sonatus and AWS to expand this prototype development into production deployment. On the horizon, Sonatus anticipates further integration with AWS services, particularly those supporting AI/ML, to introduce feature innovation, paving future avenues for building revenue.