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Both the electrical portion of the powertrain and the rising number of auxiliary systems will considerably increase the electrical power requirements in future vehicles. In addition, multiple voltage supply levels will enhance the complexity of the electrical distribution system (EDS), while strict cost, weight, packaging, and safety constraints must be upheld, posing serious design challenges in terms of robustness, reliability and energy efficiency. Currently, a self-contained integral test or evaluation of the EDS is normally not applied. For such a purpose, quantitative quality criteria are introduced here which allow a comparative assessment of an EDS by addressing the dynamic and static stability of the supply voltage, the reliability of the fusing system, and the ability to provide the required electrical power. The presented approach uses both precisely-defined test scenarios and a comprehensive EDS test bench.

The topology of an EDS, defined by the routing paths and by the location of the distribution boxes and the inline connectors, has a strong impact on weight and required amount of material, especially of copper, as well as on the manufacturing- and assembly time. Although a good part of the routing and packaging is fixed due to technical reasons and carry-over situations, in general there are enough optional paths and locations to allow up to several thousand alternative topologies. For these reasons, an optimization is possible as well as important. For such an optimization, in this paper a method is presented to concurrently minimize predefined criteria, e.g. the required copper, length of the wires, and the overall length of the wire bundles. It is based on designated algorithms for the variation of the topology, the routing, and the calculation of the optimization criteria as mentioned above.