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The inverter of the electrical driven compressor (EDC) is subjected to high thermal loads which are resulting from external temperature exposure and from compressor solicitations from the vehicle thermal loop (refrigerant nature, flow rate, compression rate, initial temperature). An incorrect thermal management of the inverter might lead to a significant decrease of efficiency which degrades the performance, product lifetime (electronics components failure) and even worse, might lead to a hazardous thermal event (HTE). The need of the automotive market to drastically decrease project development time, requires decreasing design and simulation activities lead time without degrading the design robustness, which is one additional complexity and challenge for the R&D team.

Engine ECU testing requires sophisticated sensor simulation and event capture equipment. FPGAs are the ideal devices to address these requirements. Their high performance and high flexibility are perfectly suited to the rapidly changing test needs of today's advanced ECUs. FPGAs offer significant advantages such as parallel processing, design scalability, ultra-fast pin-to-pin response time, design portability, and lifetime upgradability. All of these benefits are highly valuable when validating constantly bigger embedded software in shorter duration. This paper discusses the collaboration between Valeo and NI to define, implement, and deploy a graphical, open-source, FPGA-based engine simulation library for ECU verification.

Ecology is getting nowadays more and more of a concern for the automotive industry. Reduction of fuel consumption and consequently of CO2 emissions are currently one of the main powertrain innovations driver through vehicle hybridization. Hybrid product family is rapidly expanding, and after the success of full hybrid solutions mainly in the North American market, mild and micro-hybrids represent an emerging and promising solution. Indeed, requiring less vehicle modifications for their integration, and nevertheless providing a higher cost to benefit ratio compared to full hybrids, mild and micro-hybrid systems are targeting large market shares [2], [3]. In particular, 14V belt-driven air cooled starter-alternators offer enhanced comfort through fast and noiseless start as well as flexibility and simple vehicle implementation. However, the success of these solutions is mainly depending on their cost.

In the near future the automotive industry shall introduce a wide range of new, high technological functions and applications. These are being driven by the industries demand for a reduction in fuel consumption, pollutant emissions and an overall improvement to vehicle safety. These new demands go together with the spread of electronics and the implementation of more and more electrically driven systems, with medium and high power capabilities. These electrically driven systems either replace previous hydro-mechanical systems, for Power Steering for instance, or allow for the introduction of new functionalities like engine “Start & Stop”. They can even lead to completely new power train architecture like hybrid vehicles for example. With all these systems the demand for more equipment with power electronics, tailored to the automotive industry, rises tremendously.

Electronic thermal management reduces pump and fan power consumption through gains in controllability and efficiency, and also provides for additional control of heat rejection management and variable control of coolant, oil, and engine temperatures. This paper represents the design, bench testing, and wind-tunnel vehicle testing of an advanced system comprised of an electric pump, electronic water flow proportioning valve, 42V alternator, 36V starter, and an electronic control system which commands the performance of the valve, pump, and fan clutch in relation to the cooling demand on a 1999 Volvo VN tractor equipped with a Cummins N14 engine. System design and test data are compared from both the stock cooling system and the advanced thermal management system (ATMS).