Android Automotive 26Q2

This page describes features and enhancements in the Android Automotive OS (AAOS) 26Q2 release (API level 37), which includes eight new features and addresses 180 issues.

AAOS framework

User management

  • Enabled the notification ManagedServices on visible background users.

  • Added support for DocumentsUI on visible background users.

Audio and radio

  • Audio focus enforcement: Enabled audio focus enforcement in AAOS, which is critical for user safety.

  • Audio gain callback: This callback lets audio hardware communicate volume changes to software components, including apps, and lets the entire system consistently detect current audio levels. OEMs can add new events to the audio gain callback and customize the behavior in the OEM service.

Car framework

  • Vehicle property availability: Lets OEMs dynamically enable and disable vehicle properties, with additional statuses for properties that are either vendor-defined or not available.

Display safety

The AAOS Display Safety suite introduces an isolated, safety-hardened graphics architecture for the new SDV platform, providing a responsive Unified Cockpit experience. Display Safety has the following components:

  • High availability renderer (HAR): A low-latency engine that operates independently of the main infotainment system to ensure deterministic display of critical vehicle data like gear, speed, and telltales. It uses a safety-isolated rendering loop and compositing for efficient blending.

  • Safety design compiler and monitor toolchain: A set of automated utilities used to verify that safety-critical visual elements comply with display layout standards. It enforces pixel-perfect rendering and employs difference segmentation for visual compliance.

  • Android cluster app (DriverUI): An interactive app that synchronizes over resilient AAOS SDV channels to composite infotainment content with HAR safety layers on the cluster screen.

Connectivity

  • Messaging with multiple devices: Fixed a regression in the telephony stack that prevented the system from storing messages from multiple connected devices.

  • PANS-and-Play integration (PnP): Updated Google Play to be PANS-aware to improve user experience.

System UI and experiences

  • Scalable System UI: Extended the Scalable UI framework by defining an API that lets OEMs customize system-layer System UI components. This unifies the workflow and enables consistent application of brand identity.

  • Multi-user, multi-display (MUMD) reference: Provided a sample of a multi-display configuration that uses concurrent background users with Scalable UI.

  • Heads-up notifications (HUNs) for Scalable UI: Streamlined OEM customization and reduced costs by modularizing System UI components such as HVAC and Car System UI. Key features include a dedicated HUNPanel translation mechanism for state-defined animations and a new HUNWindow class for optimized window lifecycle management.

  • Car System UI modularization: Deconstructed the monolithic Android System UI into independent, modular components to lower OEM costs and prevent compatibility issues.

Core apps

  • AppFunction APIs: Let agents connect to apps.

Camera

  • Deprecated the Extended View System (EVS): Deprecated EVS APIs to reduce fragmentation and unify the camera API surface. OEMs should instead use the Camera2 APIs. For more information, see Migrate to Camera2.

Software Defined Vehicle (SDV)

  • Software Defined Vehicles: Extended Android's capabilities beyond the infotainment screen to power multiple domains in the car with a scalable service-oriented architecture (SOA) and seamless integration with IVI. Includes HAR for instrument clusters, enabling rapid design and development iterations for a full cockpit solution.

Compliance

To validate your AAOS implementation, use the following test suites:

Known test issues

The AAOS 26Q2 release includes the following known test-related issues:

  • CtsSurfaceControlTests[secondary_user_on_secondary_display]
    • #testImeVisible
    • #testImeVisibleWithZBelowRequest
    • #testImeZOrderedAboveEmbeddedWindowInChildWindow
    • #testImeVisibleWithZBelowTouch
  • CtsGraphicsTestCases
    • FrameRateOverrideTest#testAppDisplayModeGetRefreshRateDisplayModeReturnsPhysicalRefreshRateEnabled
    • FrameRateOverrideTest#testAppBackpressure
  • FrameRateOverrideTest#testAppDisplayGetRefreshRate
    • FrameRateOverrideTest#testAppChoreographer

Automated test that requires manual verification

The following module fails automated testing (CTS) under specific multi-user or multi-display configurations: CtsMediaAudioTestCases[secondary_user_on_secondary_display]. Verify the associated functionality using manual testing.