Technical Challenges in Future Electrical Architectures

As part of standardizing the global portfolio, General Motors (GM) created an electrical architecture that will support the GM global product feature set. Introduced in 2009, this common electrical architecture is already being applied to multiple platforms in GM's regional engineering centers. The electrical architecture will be updated regularly to address the needs of new features in the automotive market and to take advantage of the latest technology advancements. The functional requirements of these new features result in technology challenges. In addition, many new features may result in challenges to the vehicle electrical architecture or the vehicle development process. The challenges have been evaluated so that needs and initiatives can be better understood. Identified areas where GM expects initiatives will be pursued to provide improvements include: packaging size, energy efficiency, integration into generic hardware, tools and processes, flash programming, high bandwidth communication and security. Examples of key technologies to manage these challenges would include: tools for up-integration that support ISO26262 based processes, Ethernet, and multi-speed processors. This paper will discuss these forecasted needs and some of the technology solutions required in the next generation GM electrical architecture. It is expected that these technological needs will be consistent across most OEMs, so the solutions proposed should be applicable elsewhere in the automotive industry.