A powerful tool for automotive testing

24th July 2018

Alex Lynn

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It has been announced that HMS Industrial Networks is introducing version five of the IXXAT Automotive Configuration Tool (ACT) for the IXXAT FRC platform, targeting automotive testing applications.

Together with the IXXAT hardware platforms FRC-EP 190 and FRC-EP 170, the new version five of IXXAT Automotive Configuration Tool form a sophisticated solution for testing automotive bus systems and devices. Logging and visualisation are supported, and complex Residual Bus Simulation (RBS) and gateway applications using Matlab/Simulink can be achieved. User specific code can also be easily implemented. On the hardware side, the FRC-EP’s include a standalone, high performance microcontroller system and a variety of interfaces for CAN, CAN FD, FlexRay, LIN, EtherCAT, and Automotive Ethernet.

In addition to the data logger functionality, CAN/CAN FD gateways can now be implemented with the new freeware version and powerful functions for data visualisation on HTML5-capable devices (tablet, smartphone) are available. Furthermore, customer specific functions can be implemented using C user code elements and the generic Ethernet interface of the hardware platforms is supported.

A Generic Ethernet protocol interface enables transmission of CAN data via Ethernet, which for example can be used to link automotive test benches with cloud based simulation environments. To use the freeware version, users need one of the two FRC hardware platforms. This enables customers to set up a low cost and high performance test system that already has a wide range of functions.

Besides the freeware version, the ACT tool is offered in a Lite version with Matlab/Simulink and EtherCAT support, and in a Standard version with full functionality. The standard version includes a powerful RBS functionality which provides an easy to configure simulation environment for testing of single or multiple ECUs independent of other network participants. In addition, extensive functions for signal manipulation via XCPonEthernet are included. Version five also supports Fibex 3.x, 4.x and AutosarXML and has full PDU support. Signal manipulation is now possible on all connected bus systems and is no longer limited to buses under the control of the RBS.