Carmelo, Android Developer for Automotive OS at MCA Italia

On the blog today we discover the experience of Carmelo, Android Systems Developer Consultant at MCA Italia.

Hello Carmelo, can you tell us more about your current customer project, within the Automotive industry in Italy?

Yes, of course. I've been working for a few years at several levels for a company belonging to a major car manufacturer in Italy. There, I developed an infotainment system based on Android Automotive, in one of its first versions.

Thanks to this project, I was able to grow and improve my knowledge of Android Automotive. Within the framework of this project, I developed applications such as Launcher, Media and Navi.

I also worked on an application with the Flutter tool (cross-platform framework) and I was able to customize the Android emulator to get the multi-screen feature of Android 9 (which was not supported) to reduce testing costs.

Finally, still in the same company, I worked on a project based on Android Cuttlefish; Cuttlefish being a configurable virtual Android device that can run and be controlled with VNC both remotely and locally; and that uses nested virtualization features for high performance.

What is your relationship with MCA? How do you feel about the company?

When I explain to my family and friends why working at MCA is so nice, I tell them it's because I have a good relationship of trust with the whole team (HR, Managers, staff in general...). And that this team supports my professional development and helps me to increase my skills by stimulating me day after day.

Carmelo, can you tell us more about the technical aspect of Android Automotive?

Absolutely! I work mainly with Android Automotive, but to better understand how it works, you have to understand the concept of AOSP.

"AOSP" stands for "Android Open Source Project" and is simply a place where we have the information and source code to create custom variants of the Android OS.

Android Automotive is a custom variant of the Android OS, designed for the automotive industry. It is based on decades of development and is highly customizable, flexible, and open source.

The key skills required to work effectively with Android Automotive are without a doubt :

* android infrastructure and its particularities

* the creation of interactive and optimised graphic elements such as RecycleView

* list management,

* animation,

*knowledge of several key programming languages such as Java, Kotlin and C++.

The main challenges when evolving in Android Automotive are :

1) The improvement of man-machine interfaces with new innovative methods of use

2) Improving the security of sensitive data, by creating a common protocol shared between the different OEMs.

3) The shortening of the time to market

Thank you Carmelo for this testimonial on your project, and this great technical focus!

We wish you every success in your career at MCA Italia.