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Autonomous driving systems and connected mobility are the next big developments for the car manufacturers and their suppliers during the next decade. To achieve the high computing power needs and fulfill new upcoming requirements due to functional safety and security, heterogeneous processor architectures with a mixture of different core architectures and hardware accelerators are necessary. To tackle this new type of hardware complexity and nevertheless stay within monetary constraints, high performance computers, inspired by state of the art data center hardware, could be adapted in order to fulfill automotive quality requirements. The European Processor Initiative (EPI) research project tries to come along with that challenge for next generation semiconductors. To be as close as possible to series development needs for the next upcoming car generations, we present a hybrid semiconductor system-on-chip architecture for automotive.

Current regulatory developments aim for stricter emission limits, increased environmental protection and purification of air on a local and global scale. In order to find solutions for a cleaner combustion process, it is necessary to identify the critical components and parameters responsible for the formation of emissions. This work provides an evaluation process for particle formation during combustion of a modern direct injection engine, which can help to create new aftertreatment techniques, such as a gasoline particle filter (GPF) system, that are fit for purpose. With the advent of “real driving emission” (RDE) regulations, which include market fuels for the particulate number testing procedure, the chemical composition and overall quality of the fuel cannot be neglected in order to yield a comparable emission test within the EU and worldwide.

Air charge calibration of turbocharged SI gasoline engines with both variable inlet valve lift and variable inlet and exhaust valve opening angle has to be very accurate and needs a high number of measurements. In particular, the modeling of the transition area from unthrottled, inlet valve controlled resp. throttled mode to turbocharged mode, suffers from small number of measurements (e.g. when applying Design of Experiments (DoE)). This is due to the strong impact of residual gas respectively scavenging dominating locally in this area. In this article, a virtual residual gas sensor in order to enable black-box-modeling of the air charge is presented. The sensor is a multilayer perceptron artificial neural network. Amongst others, the physically calculated air mass is used as training data for the artificial neural network.

The BMW Group has introduced electric cars to the market with the MINI E already in 2009. The next step will be the launch of the BMW ActiveE in 2011, followed by the revolutionary Mega City Vehicle in 2013. The presentation will explain the BMW Group strategy for implementing sustainable mobility. A focus will be emobility, the use of carbon fiber and the holistic sustainability approach of BMW Group?s project i. Reference will be made to the research results of the MINI E projects in the US and in Europe. Presenter Andreas Klugescheid, BMW AG

The quality of the paint application in automotive industry depends on several process parameters. Thus, finding an optimal solution based on experimental configuration is tedious and time consuming. A first step to reduce the effort is to model the application within the framework of a simulation environment. In this study, we present an approach for the systematic variation of design parameters of the paint process to quantify their influence on the quality of the paint application. Using that information the design space is reduced by neglecting the parameters with low impact and later used to predict an optimal set of input parameters for an optimal paint application.

The automakers that comprise MOST® describe the reasons for this decision. First, they present the automobile industry's needs relative to multimedia networks in vehicles. Then, they present the different aspects of the MOST® technology. Multimedia networks are used in the electronics market, but they do not meet the technical and industrial constraints of the automobile electronics, which is why six automakers are working on most technology under the aegis of ""Most Cooperation.'' The transmission rate is a decisive aspect in the selection of a multimedia network. The rate of sound and video applications require fiber optics. The multimedia network rate must be adequate for a vehicle equipped with the maximum number of options, but the maximum rate is limited by the number of passengers.

BMW - the driving force for progress As we approach the new millenium, to ensure the continuation of the progress into the future, BMW uses leading edge approaches in its materials research and processing. Overview production sites all over the world - Plant Dingolfing Quality requirements for automobile painting The complex and wide-ranging demands that the outer skin of an automobile has to meet offered us the chance to advance with a technological leap from liquid clear coat to the potentials of powder clear coat. The new clear coat technology The clear coat creates the ultimate gloss effect - and powder-based clear coat makes the surface of the car even more brilliant. To achieve this effect the body is covered by microscopically small paint particles. A pioneer achievement A lot of challenges in both material development and systems-engineering had to be made. The automotive world was watching, many experts said it could not be successfully used as an OEM clear coat.

Fast and exact measurement of engine oil consumption is a very difficult task. Our aim is to achieve this measurement at a common test bed without engine modifications. We resolved this problem with a new technique using Laser Mass Spectrometry to detect appropriate tracers in the raw engine exhaust. The tracers are added to the engine oil. to the engine oil. For detection of these tracers we use a Laser Mass Spectrometer (LAMS). This is a combination of resonant laser ionization (with an all-solid-state laser) and Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry. Currently this is the only way to detect oil originated molecules (like our tracers) in the raw exhaust very fast (50 Hz) and sensitive (ppb-region). Thus, engine mapping of oil consumption over load and speed can be performed in 1-2 days with about 90 measurements. Even measurement during dynamic engine operation is possible, but not quantitative (due to the lack of information about dynamic exhaust gas mass flow).

During the development of a software system, such as automatic transmission control unit of passenger cars, the developer must check how the system satisfies the requirements from the customers perspective. At the customer side, reliability and correctness are the most important factors in terms of the product quality. In order to achieve a certain degree of these quality factors, the adequate development methods or standards must be applied during the whole development process of the product. Testing is the most important activity of the development process to assess the product reliability and correctness. In this paper the real-time statistical-based test environment is presented. The objective is to assess the quality of automatic transmission control unit of passenger cars in its intended environment applying a usage profile.

For the first time in volume production, supporting welded aluminum structures were used in the chassis area. Metal sheets, extruded sections, longitudinally seam welded pipes and castings were used as semi-finished products. Extensive strength tests, in cooperation with the Design Department and Production, resulted in sophisticated design solutions. In considering matters important to the customer, these solutions were substantiated through numerous examinations which are especially necessary for aluminum.

In a joint research project between industrial companies and a number of research institutes, nitrogen oxide conversion in oxygen containing exhaust gas has been investigated according to the following procedure Basic investigations of elementary steps of the chemical reaction Production and prescreening of different catalytic material on laboratory scale Application oriented screening of industrial catalyst material Catalyst testing on a lean bum gasoline engine, passenger car diesel engines (swirl chamber and DI) and on a DI truck engine Although a number of solid body structures show nitrogen oxide reduction by hydrocarbons, only noble metal containing catalysts and transition metal exchanged zeolites gave catalytic efficiencies of industrial relevance. A maximum of 25 % NOx reduction was found in the European driving cycle for passenger cars, about 40 % for truck engines in the respective European test.

The production of the BMW ALPINA B12 5.7 with Switch-Tronic transmission provides the markets of Europe and Japan with an exclusive, luxury-orientated, high performance limited series limousine. This is the first vehicle worldwide to be fitted with the progressive exhaust gas aftertreatment technology known as the Electrically Heated Catalyst (EHC), in which the effectiveness of the power utilized is increased significantly by an alternating heating process for both catalytic converters. Only since this achievement has the implementation of the EHC been viable without extensive modification to the battery and alternator. With this exhaust gas aftertreatment concept, the emissions of this high performance vehicle will fall to less than half the maximum permissible for compliance with 1996 emission standards.

A lot of very valuable information has already been gained in the process of dismantling, assorting and reconditioning plastic parts on old cars, in reconditioning defective plastic parts from workshops, and in the use of reject parts from production. This know-how is now applied primarily to increase the use of recycled plastics and to optimise the composition and design of future plastic components in the interest of recycling, since further development in these areas is essential in order to establish economically stable material cycles functioning properly in the long term. The present paper describes the most important criteria through which the materials and designs chosen affect the processes and principles of recycling in the case of plastic parts and components.

The improvement of low-speed MUX-systems in car-body areas gets important in a scenario where on one hand, the possible number of integrated local control units (LCU's) gets larger and on the other hand, the possible versions of a car range from basic to top-of-the-line. Cost and developement time can be reduced if the same MUX-System is used throughout this whole range. A possibility to realize this is the use of data-compression (DC) for data-transmission. Basic configurations integrating only a small number of LCU's of a car-MUX can communicate without using data-compression, whereas for the top-of-the-line versions, the performance can be enhanced using DC only for communication processes between additional control units causing critical peak load situations. Specifically, the use of adaptive algorithms in automotive multiplex systems is a promising way to improve the MUX's capacity performance by minimizing redundant symbols/information in peak-load situations.

In studying H2S emissions, it is desirable to have an analytical technique which is rapid, continuous, accurate and easy to use in a laboratory or vehicle exhaust environment. Typically, H2S has been measured using the EPA impinger method with collection times on the order of 1 to 2 minutes. Other techniques have been developed with significantly shorter response times. However, it has been shown that the major release of H2S occurs in less than 20 seconds after a vehicle changes from rich to lean operation. Therefore, it is highly desirable to have an H2S analytical technique with a response time of less than 10 seconds. In this paper, the benefits of use of a chemical ionization mass spectrometer (CIMS) to continuously monitor H2S and SO2, emissions are reported. Using the CIMS technique, the effects of several operating parameters on the release of H2S and SO2 from automotive catalysts were studied.