Modeling & Code Generation for Powertrain Control Monitoring

With the introduction of new technologies ranging from developing new alternative energy vehicles to passive and active safety systems, the automakers are responding to the increased complexity of the control system by embracing Model Based Design (MBD) and Auto-code Generation (ACG) tools for control system design. This translates into lower development costs, higher quality and faster time-to-market. The Ford Motor Company production hybrid group launched a pilot project to study the feasibility of using MBD to speed up the development and testing of the next generation Torque Monitor software. This software uses a custom data storage format, called Double Store Variable (DSV) format, for all the critical signals. Each variable contains two fields, one for storing the actual data and the second for storing a transformed copy (e.g. one's complement) of the data. This allows the software to detect run-time corruption of the data in real-time.

This paper presents the results of the pilot project and some of the challenges encountered in using the current generation of commercially available MBD tools to meet the specific needs of the Torque Monitor software. Solutions to some of the problems and the lessons learned are also presented.