Patrick Leteinturier

Embedded systems and software challenges in electric vehicles

The design of electric vehicles require a complete paradigm shift in terms of embedded systems architectures and software design techniques that are followed within the conventional automotive systems domain. It is increasingly being realized that the evolutionary approach of replacing the engine of a car by an electric engine will not be able to address issues like acceptable vehicle range, battery lifetime performance, battery management techniques, costs and weight, which are the core issues for the success of electric vehicles. While battery technology has crucial importance in the domain of electric vehicles, how these batteries are used and managed pose new problems in the area of embedded systems architecture and software for electric vehicles. At the same time, the communication and computation design challenges in electric vehicles also have to be addressed appropriately. This paper discusses some of these research challenges.

Solving automotive challenges with Electronics

The automotive industry is challenged by strong and often contradictory forces: environment protection, sustainability, safety, quality, fun to drive, fashion, comfort, and of course cost effectiveness. The integration of new functions and features in to the car are often enabled by electronics. This holds true for all the major application fields; whether powertrain, safety management, body and convenience or infotainment. Electronics is giving new opportunities to improve energy efficiency and CO2 reduction. The domain approach allows consolidation of functions into fewer electronic control super units. The automotive industry is intelligently using standardization as a means to manage the increasing vehicle complexity. The successful implementation and the high penetration of car electronics across all different vehicle classes are strongly dependent on three major aspects: productivity, quality and innovation. These parameters affect all parties of the automotive electronics value chain, with an especially significant contribution from the semiconductor industry. There are many important questions that have to be dealt with in this context: how can a continuous productivity improvement be achieved to support further penetration of car electronics where Moores law is slowing down? How can the component quality provide the desired zero defect rate when the complexity of automotive electronic systems is so rapidly increasing? How can innovations be guaranteed considering the very tough financial boundaries on the component level? And how can automotive long-term product delivery be fulfilled? The presenter will propose answers to these questions from the perspective of Europes largest automotive semiconductor supplier.

Implementing FlexRay on Silicon

FlexRay^1, a high speed, time triggered and fault tolerant communication protocol, was specified to fulfil the requirements of safety-critical automotive applications. The maturity of the FlexRay specification already allows the implementation on silicon. The CZC-310^2 device is a FlexRay standalone communication controller from Infineon Technologies. It includes the widely spread E-Ray^3 from Bosch. A complete communication node for FlexRay requires additional devices for the physical layer and the application part. CZC-310 can communicate with a host controller via three different interfaces (micro link interface, serial synchronous interface, external bus). Its physical layer interface corresponds to the FlexRay specification. CZC-310 provides features like intelligent move engines to maximize the achievable data rate as well as to minimize the workload of the host. Therefore, CIC-310 allows a very flexible and efficient way to build up FlexRay nodes.

TTCAN from applications to products in automotive systems

This paper outlines the results of a study performed to analyze the mission of TTCAN from applications to products for automotive systems. As commonly acknowledged communication is one of the key elements for future and even present systems such as an automobile. A dramatically increasing number of busses and gateways even in low- to midrange vehicles is putting significant burden upon the validation scenario as well as the cost. Accordingly, numerous new initiatives have been started worldwide in order to find solutions to this; some of them by the definition of enhanced or new protocols. This paper shall have a look particular on the new standard of TTCAN (time-triggered communication on CAN). This protocol is based on the CAN data link layer as specified in ISO 11898-1 and may use standardized CAN physical layers such as specified in ISO 11898-2 (highspeed transceiver) or in ISO 11898-3 (fault-tolerant low-speed transceiver). This particular property is beneficial when migrating towards time-triggered communication approaches. Furthermore TTCAN provides a mechanism to schedule CAN messages either time-triggered or event-triggered. This feature opens new ways to partition, link and structure systems more efficiently in terms of cost and validation. Examples are implementation of a sensor bus, distributed or split control functionality and increased real-time performance in CAN-based in-vehicle networks without software overhead. This paper will identify automotive applications and approaches that require or benefit from the TTCAN protocol. Strengths and limits of the solution are addressed for the domains of powertrain and safety vehicle dynamics. Partitioning will be proposed with the key advantages and system benefits for the applications. A new implementation of a level2 TTCAN node providing full TTCAN functionality with very low software overhead is presented as well.

Future Engine Control Enabling Environment Friendly Vehicle

The aim of this paper is to compile the state of the art of engine control and develop scenarios for improvements in a number of applications of engine control where the pace of technology change i ...

Rapid Gasoline Powertrain System Design and Evaluation Using a Powertrain Starter Kit

Prototyping of a complete powertrain controller is not generally permissible due to the large number of subsystems involved and the resources required in making the design a reality. The availability of a complete control system reference design at an early stage in the lifecycle can greatly enhance the quality of the system definition and allows early ideas to be prototyped in the application environment. This paper describes the implementation of such a reference design for a gasoline engine and gearbox management control system, integrated into robust housing which can be used for development in a prototype vehicle. The paper also outlines the powertrain subsystems involved, discusses how the system partitioning is achieved, shows the implementation of the partitioning into the physical hardware, and concludes with presenting the system benefits which can be realized.

Automotive Sensors & Sensor Interfaces

The increasing legal requirements for safety, emission reduction, fuel economy and onboard diagnosis systems push the market for more innovative solutions with rapidly increasing complexity. Hence, the embedded systems that will have to control the automobiles have been developed at such an extent that they are now equivalent in scale and complexity to the most sophisticated avionics systems. This paper will demonstrate the key elements to provide a powerful, scalable and configurable solution that offers a migration pass to evolution an even revolution of automotive Sensors and Sensor interfaces. The document will explore different architectures and partitioning. Sensor technologies such as magnetic field sensors based on the hall effect as well as bulk and surface silicon micro machined sensors will be mapped to automotive applications by examples. Functions such as self-test, self-calibration and self-repair will be developed. Possible migration to lower voltage (5V to 3,3V) will be investigated. In this context the document will also propose sensors interfaces to ease the signal conditioning inside the ECU. An insight of sensor busses will be performed to provide a picture of sensor networks.

Automotive Semi-Conductor Trend a Challenges

Summary form only given. The automotive electronics has been introduced with multiple waves over the time: powertrain, safety and vehicle dynamic, body and convenience, telematics. The future is already knocking at the door and revolutionary systems are currently developed: X-by-wire, E-safety, hybrid vehicle. The increasing requirements for fuel economy, safety, emission reduction, and onboard diagnosis push the automotive industry for more innovative solutions with a rapid increase of complexity. The presentation will highlight the motivation to introduce high performance electronics in the car. At the early time of electronic, ECUs (electronic control units) were seen as been the system, with the birth of networking the complete car was the system to be controlled, today with modern communication and services the car is just a node in the traffic, this last one is now the system to be considered. The innovation for the individual transportation is at 90% enabled by electronic. The development of such system shows three main challenges: dependable communication, dependable computation and dependable power. The modern high-end cars are running more than 80 ECUs, the communication bandwidth and message determinism require the development of new busses such as Flexray. The increasing power demand is pushing for a different voltage class. The cost pressure and the time to market are forcing the automotive industry to re-invent processes, development cycle and to introduce standards. This panel discussion will demonstrate the key elements to provide a powerful, scalable and configurable control solution that offer a migration pass to evolution and even revolution of automotive electronics