RF2Digital Inc. has announced a strategic collaboration with Fraunhofer IIS to co-develop a comprehensive solution supporting multiple digital radio standards.
RF2Digital Inc. is a leading company in the Software-Defined-Radio-based (SDR) automotive radio market, while Fraunhofer IIS is a globally recognized research institute renowned for its contributions to digital radio standards, including DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale) and DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting), as well as for its work in audio quality innovations and data applications that open new revenue opportunities for broadcasters.
The goal of the collaboration is to develop a fully integrated digital radio solution that seamlessly combines features such as DRM’s Emergency Warning Functionality (EWF) and DAB’s EWFplus, which integrates the new DAB EWS alert signaling standard with emergency program content such as audio and Journaline advanced text.
This effort includes the development of a full-chain automotive radio reception solution, designed for direct integration into in-vehicle infotainment systems and head units. The automotive platform is engineered to deliver high-performance SDR-based reception with comprehensive support for AM and FM analogue radio as well as DRM (in all bands) combined with either DAB+ (in VHF band-III) or CDR to cater to specific market demands. The project also includes the development of a USB dongle-type receiver, created by RF2Digital and designed to complement and tightly integrate with Fraunhofer’s MultimediaPlayer Radio App (MMP). This solution targets consumer and industrial applications, providing high-quality SDR-based digital radio reception via a USB interface.
This collaboration of RF2Digital and Fraunhofer IIS is committed to delivering a cohesive, integrated solution. It enables customers from consumer radio manufacturers to automotive OEMs and Tier-1s as to deliver intuitive and reliable access to emergency alerts and related multimedia content such as DLplus, Journaline advanced text, station logos, and SlideShow images across platforms, with full Unicode support for all regional text profiles. The unified application is designed to be implemented into all types of digital radio receiver devices and ensures a seamless and consistent user experience.
William Kim, Ph.D. in Engineering and Chief Innovation Officer at RF2Digital Inc., commented: “This collaboration brings together a leading industrial player and a renowned international research institute. We are confident that this joint effort will foster innovation and generate meaningful impact in the market. Our commitment is to develop a full-chain automotive solution that integrates advanced SDR technology and global digital radio standards, delivering best-in-class performance and compatibility across a wide range of use cases worldwide.”
Alexander Zink, Senior Business Development Manager Broadcast Applications at Fraunhofer IIS, added “We are thrilled to work on this innovative and multi-standard digital radio SDR solution for global markets together with our partner RF2Digital. We are committed to making the complete digital radio feature set accessible to listeners across various device types in a consistent way. This includes access to all the content components of the broadcast signals often not even presented to the users on existing radio sets.”
About RF2Digital Inc.
RF2Digital Inc., headquartered in the Seoul metropolitan area of South Korea, is a fast-growing technology company with a global outlook. While rooted in Korea, we are steadily expanding our international presence with local support operations across key regions, including the EU, India, and China.
Our core strength lies in research and development. We are a team of seasoned engineers and researchers from diverse technical backgrounds, united by a shared commitment to innovation. What distinguishes us is our deep understanding of the automotive industry’s needs and processes—an expertise that enables us to deliver highly tailored and impactful solutions to global partners. At RF2Digital, we are committed to leading the transformation of in-vehicle systems through software-defined innovation. Pioneering this transformation, we have developed state-of-the-art Software Defined Radio (SDR)-based global radio solutions for vehicles. Our technology supports all major digital radio standards on a single hardware platform, enhancing system flexibility, accelerating time-to-market, and reducing the need for regional hardware variations.