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This paper shows a realisation approach for functional safety considerations for X-by-Wire vehicles. The E/E architecture has been built up as a redundant highly-safety-critical multiapplication platform with access to all sensors and actuators (so called satellites) ensuring different safety integrity levels besides reliability. Such it will be possible to develop high-level control functions (HCFs) independently of the overall vehicle E/E architecture, redundancy and even data-flow. This means that herein an approach is shown of how to split the responsibility of safety and the development of intelligent vehicle control-functionality. The feasibility has been shown within the EC-funded project SPARC (www.sparc-eu.net). The paper focuses on the identification of functions being implemented in software to ensure safety. The detailed design of the mechanisms themselves will not be part of this paper.

Engine and laboratory tests were carried out to examine the performance of NOx adsorption catalysts for gasoline lean burn engines in fresh and aged condition. The results show that fresh NOx adsorption catalysts have the potential to meet EURO III emission standards. However, to accomplish these the fuel must contain a low sulfur concentration and the engine must be tuned to optimize the efficiency of the catalyst. After engine or furnace aging upto 750°C the catalyst shows some loss of NOx adsorption efficiency. This deterioration can be offset somewhat by increasing the frequency of lean/rich switching of the engine. Temperatures higher than 750°C may cause an irreversible destruction of the NOx, storage features while the three-way activity of the catalyst remains intact or even may improve. With reference to several physicochemical investigations it is believed that the detrimental effect of catalyst aging is attributed to two different deactivation modes.