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The reduction of vehicle exhaust particle emissions is a success story of European legislation. Various particle number (PN) counters and calibration procedures serve as tools to enforce PN emission limits during vehicle type approval (VTA) or periodical technical inspection (PTI) of in-use vehicles. Although all devices and procedures apply to the same PN-metric, they were developed for different purposes, by different stakeholder groups and for different target costs and technical scopes. Furthermore, their calibration procedures were independently defined by different stakeholder communities. This frequently leads to comparability and interpretation issues. Systematic differences of stationary and mobile PN counters (PN-PEMS) are well-documented. New, low-cost PTI PN counters will aggravate this problem. Today, tools to directly compare different instruments are scarce.

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.

Functional safe systems fulfilling the ISO 26262 standard are getting more important for automotive applications where additional redundant and diverse functionality is needed for higher rated ASIL levels. This can result in a very complex and expensive system setup. Here we present a sensor product developed according ISO 26262. This sensor product comprises a two channel redundant and also diverse implemented magnetic field sensor concept with linear digital outputs on one monolithically integrated silicon substrate. This sensor is used for ASIL D applications like power-steering torque measurement, where the torque is transferred into a magnetic field signal in a certain magnetic setup, but can also be used in other demanding sensor applications concerning safety. This proposed and also implemented solution is beneficial because of implementation on a single chip in one single chip-package but anyway fulfilling ASIL D requirements on system level.

The automotive industry experiences a major change as vehicles are gradually becoming a part of the Internet. Security concepts based on the closed-world assumption cannot be deployed anymore due to a constantly changing adversary model. Automotive Ethernet as future in-vehicle network and a new E/E Architecture have different security requirements than Ethernet known from traditional IT and legacy systems. In order to achieve a high level of security, a new multi-layer approach in the vehicle which responds to special automotive requirements has to be introduced. One essential layer of this holistic security concept is to restrict non-authorized access by the deployment of embedded firewalls. This paper addresses the introduction of automotive firewalls into the next-generation domain architecture with a focus on partitioning of its features in hardware and software.

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.

Vehicle manufacturers are challenged by rising costs for vehicle recalls. A major part of the costs are caused by software updates. This paper describes a feasibility study on how to implement software update over the air (SOTA) in light vehicles. The differences and special challenges in the automotive environment in comparison to the cellular industry will be explained. Three key requirements focus on the drivers’ acceptance and thus are crucial for the vehicle manufacturers: SOTA must be protected against malicious attacks. SOTA shall interfere as little as possible with the availability of a vehicle. Long update processes with long vehicle downtimes or even complete fails must be avoided. The functional safety of the vehicle during operation may not be limited in any way The study gives options how those objectives can be achieved. It considers the necessary security measures and describes the required adaptations of the board-net architectures both on software and hardware level.

It has become an important trend to implement safety-related requirements in the road vehicles. Recent studies have shown that accidents, which occurred when drivers are not focused due to fatigue or distractions, can be predicted in advance when using safety features. Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) are used to prevent this kind of situation. Currently, many major tiers are using a DSP chip for ADAS applications. This paper suggests the migration from a DSP configuration to a Microcontroller configuration for ADAS application, for example, using a 32bit Multi-core Microcontroller. In this paper, the following topics will be discussed. Firstly, this paper proposes and describes the system block diagram for ADAS configuration followed by the requirements of the ADAS system. Secondly, the paper discusses the current solutions using a DSP. Thirdly, the paper presents a system that is migrated to a Multi-core microcontroller.

In modern vehicles, the number of small electrical drive systems is still increasing continuously for blowers, fans and pumps as well as for window lifts, sunroofs and doors. Requirements and operating conditions for such systems varies, hence there are many different solutions available for controlling such motors. In most applications, simple, low-cost DC motors are used. For higher requirements regarding operating time and in stop-start capable systems, the focus turns to highly efficient and durable brushless DC motors with electronic commutation. This paper compares various electronic control concepts from a semiconductor vendor point of view. These concepts include discrete control using relays or MOSFETs. Furthermore integrated motor drivers are discussed, including system-on-chip solutions for specific applications, e.g. specific ICs for window lift motors with LIN interface.

The electrification of the powertrain is still one of the main challenges and innovation drivers for modern cars. With the introduction of the Toyota Prius, launched in Japan in 1997 the first commercially available hybrid car in mass production, the development continued towards the BMW i3 launched in July 2013. One main component for all kind of hybrid cars is still the power semiconductor, which is used for DC/DC converters and for the inverter to drive the electric motor for the traction control. What makes the selection of the right power semiconductor complex, is the variety of different voltage levels within the car (from standard 12V board net, the new 48V board net all the way up to 400V and above) plus different requirements in terms of switching and conduction performance, or accordingly power losses. The selection of device by application and voltage will be discussed in this paper.

The potential to reduce the cost of embedded software by standardizing the application behavior for Automotive Body and Comfort domain functions is explored in this paper. AUTOSAR, with its layered architecture and a standard definition of the interfaces for Body and Comfort application functions, has simplified the exchangeability of software components. A further step is to standardize the application behavior, by developing standard specifications for common Body and Comfort functions. The corresponding software components can be freely exchanged between different OEM/Tier-1 users, even if developed independently by multiple suppliers. In practice, individual OEM users may need to maintain some distinction in the functionality. A method of categorizing the specifications as ‘common’ and ‘unique’, and to configure them for individual applications is proposed. This allows feature variability by means of relatively simple adapter functions.

ISO 26262 is the actual standard for Functional Safety of automotive E/E (Electric/Electronic) systems. One of the challenges in the application of the standard is the distribution of safety related activities among the participants in the supply chain. In this paper, the concept of a Safety Element out of Context (SEooC) development will be analyzed showing its current problematic aspects and difficulties in implementing such an approach in a concrete typical automotive development flow with different participants (e.g. from OEM, tier 1 to semiconductor supplier) in the supply chain. The discussed aspects focus on the functional safety requirements of generic hardware and software development across the supply chain where the final integration of the developed element is not known at design time and therefore an assumption based mechanism shall be used.

Trans Tech recently debuted the all-electric eTrans school bus providing a total zero emission school bus. The presentation will demonstrate Smith Electric Vehicles and their history with electric vehicles. The presentation will help ensure that everybody has an idea of what the electric school bus will do and to dispel any rumors about the vehicle. Presenter Brian S. Barrington, Trans Tech. Bus

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.

More than ever, microcontroller performance in cars has a direct impact on the driving experience, on compliance with improved safety, ever-stricter emissions regulations, and on fuel economy. The simple microcontrollers formerly used in automobiles are now being replaced by powerful number-crunchers with incredible levels of peripheral integration. As a result, performance can no longer be measured in MIPS (Millions of Instructions Per Second). A microcontroller's effectiveness is based on coherent partitioning between analog and digital, hardware and software, tools and methodology. To make an informed choice among the available devices, the designer needs benchmarks that are specific to automotive applications, and which provide a realistic representation of how the device will perform in the automotive environment.

Today the majority of power electronics is developed based on the requirements set by the main fields of application e.g. power generation, power supply, industrial drive and traction. With introduction to automotive applications new requirements have to be taken into account. This paper discusses how interconnection technologies for power semiconductors can be improved to meet the demand for higher temperature capability in HEV applications.

More than ever, microcontroller performance in cars has a direct impact on the driving experience, on compliance with improved safety, ever-stricter emissions regulations, and on fuel economy. The simple microcontrollers formerly used in automobiles are now being replaced by powerful number-crunchers whose performance can no longer be measured in MIPS. Instead, their effectiveness is based on a coherent partitioning between analog and digital, hardware and software, tools and methodology. To make an informed choice among the available devices, what the designer needs are benchmarks that are specific to automotive applications, and which provide a realistic representation of how the device will perform in the automotive environment. This presentation will explore the role of new benchmarks in the development of complex automotive applications.

The signal delivery and quality of sensor data is of growing importance for modern automotive control applications. Sensors tend to be calibrated subsystems that are designed to stay in a defined tolerance and thus can easily be modeled. Compared to this deterministic behavior the transmission channel is time variant due to EMC and aging of contacts for example. The use of analog signaling, which is the actual state of realization in many cases, is sensitive to the time variant effects mentioned before. This time variance is hard to consider for the control system development. In this paper we will analyze the role of the sensor in the signal supply chain and discuss approaches for digital sensor-ECU communication and their potential to establish a link, which allows neglecting low level effects of the channel.

The paper will give an introduction to the principle of the giant magneto resistive - GMR - effect and the silicon system integration of GMR sensors. The two main applications of a GMR as a magnetic field strength sensor and as an angular field direction sensor will be discussed under consideration of automotive requirements. The typical applications of a magnetic field strength GMR sensor in incremental position and speed sensing and those of GMR angular field sensors in position sensing will be summarized. Finally advantages of GMR in those applications will be discussed and conclusions on the use of GMR in automotive sensing will be drawn.