Robustness Testing against Low Voltage Transients - A Novel Approach 2010-01-0195

The increasing use of distributed functions in vehicles can introduce unexpected and undesirable emergent behavior. This can be as a result of transient events such as sudden drops in the supply voltage. In this situation system behavior is often not adequately specified or controlled. This paper presents a novel approach to automotive electronic systems testing addressing robustness against low voltage transient conditions. The paper will discuss the technical output as well as performance in real-world test usage. The proposed approach uses a combination of pseudo-random number generator algorithms to generate parameterized supply voltage waveforms simulating low voltage transient conditions, used to drive the system-under-test (SUT). Two measures are used to judge whether the SUT has passed or failed the test; the detection of unintended recorded Diagnostic Trouble Codes (DTCs) from the error memory of each Electronic Control Unit (ECU) and the detection of unexpected system functionality by a human observer or automated vision system.