Development of the Hybrid/Battery ECU for the Toyota Hybrid System

For energy saving and global warming prevention, Toyota has developed Toyota Hybrid System (THS) for mass-produced passenger cars, which achieves drastic improvement in fuel efficiency and reduction in exhaust emissions compared to conventional gasoline engine cars.

The THS has two motive power sources which engage depending on driving conditions. It's power is supplied either from an engine (controlled by the engine ECU) or an electric motor (controlled by the motor ECU) which is powered by a high-voltage battery (monitored by the battery ECU). These ECUs are controlled by a hybrid ECU. Each ECU has been developed with a fail-safe system in mind, to ensure driver safety in case of vehicle breakdowns.

Among these ECUs, this paper reports particularly on the newly introduced ECUs: hybrid ECU and battery ECU. In the development of these ECUs, special attention was focused on fail-safe performance.