Development of Production Control Algorithms for Hybrid Electric Vehicles by Using System Simulation: Technology Leadership Brief 2012-01-9008

In an earlier paper, the authors described how Model-Based System Engineering could be utilized to provide a virtual Hardware-in-the-Loop simulation capability, which creates a framework for the development of virtual ECU software by providing a platform upon which embedded control algorithms may be developed, tested, updated, and validated.

The development of virtual ECU software is increasingly valuable in automotive control system engineering because vehicle systems are becoming more complex and tightly integrated, which requires that interactions between subsystems be evaluated during the design process. Variational analysis and robustness studies are also important and become more difficult to perform with real hardware as system complexity increases.

The methodology described in this paper permits algorithm development to be performed prior to the availability of vehicle and control system hardware by providing what is essentially a virtual integration vehicle.