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Electric drives are growing in importance in automotive applications, especially in hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) and in the vehicle dynamics area (steering systems, etc.). The challenges of real-time hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation and testing of electric drives are addressed in this paper. In general, three different interface levels between the electric drive and the hardware-inthe-loop system can be distinguished: the signal level (1), the electrical level (2) and the mechanical level (3). These interface levels, as well as modeling and I/O-related aspects of electric drives and power electronics devices, are discussed in detail in the paper. Finally, different solutions based on dSPACE simulator technology are presented, for both hybrid vehicle and steering applications.

This presentation focuses on several examples of partnerships between tool suppliers and embedded software developers in which state-of-the-art tools are used to optimize a variety of electric and hybrid vehicle architectures. Projects with Automotive OEMs, Tier One Suppliers as well as with academic institutions will be described. Due to the growing complexity in multiple electronic control units (“ECUs”) inter-communicating over numerous network bus systems, combined with the challenge of controlling and maintaining charges for electric motors, vehicle development would be impossible without use of increasingly sophisticated tools. Hybrid drive trains are much more complex than conventional ones, they have at least one degree of freedom more.

Automotive technology is rapidly changing with electrification of vehicles, driver assistance systems, advanced safety systems etc. This advancement in technology is making the task of validation and verification of embedded software complex and challenging. In addition to the component testing, integration testing imposes even tougher requirements for software testing. To meet these challenges dSPACE is continuously evolving the Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) technology to provide a systematic way to manage this task. The paper presents developments in the HIL hardware technology with latest quad-core processors, FPGA based I/O technology and communication bus systems such as Flexray. Also presented are developments of the software components such as advanced user interfaces, GPS information integration, real-time testing and simulation models. This paper provides a real-world example of implication of integration testing on HIL environment for Chassis Controls.

Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test benches are indispensable for the development of modern vehicle dynamics controllers (VDCs). They can be regarded as a standard methodology today, because of the extremely safety-critical nature of the multi-sensor and multi-actuator systems used in vehicle dynamics control. The required high quality standards can only be ensured by systematic testing within a virtual HIL environment before going into a real car. This paper aims to provide a condensed technical over-view of state-of-the-art HIL test systems for VDCs, which are currently widely used in passenger cars, in the form of ABS and TCS, as well as ESP, or integrated chassis control, which is just coming onto the market. First, a short introduction to the basic functionality of these types of ECUs is given, and the reasons why HIL testing is necessary and especially useful for VDCs are discussed.