Technologies and Components for Power Train Distributed Structures - An Opportunity for Optimizing In-Vehicle EE-Architecture

The paper presents the today’s power train systems, which largely reflect a one to one mapping of physical units into a dedicated electronic control system. A new approach is suggested for a breakdown strategy with an ECU centered structure linked to a surrounding harness of sensors and actuators.

Like body electronics did first, automotive graded combination of semiconductor and packaging technologies are used to develop a network of mechatronic components.

This allows an easy and effective separation between the SW development at the vehicle level and an off-line optimization and calibration of components.

A development project is shown for a gasoline direct injected engine, where mechatronic components (e.g. cylinder, fuel pump and injectors, valve train) are networked and controlled by a master digital core, which is the application SW restricted area of the car manufacturer.