Collaboration addresses future automotive challenges

Cars today take on more than ever before. They communicate amongst themselves, defuse critical traffic situations and will steer automatically in the future. All of these innovations must be implementable with reduced fuel consumption and lower CO₂ emissions.

Shorter innovation cycles, increasing vehicle complexity and greater reliability requirements for in-car electronics systems and their component chips mean that staying ahead of the game is a near-impossibility.

With a mandate to significantly improve the reliability and robustness of electronic automotive components, the three-year RESCAR 2.0 research project was primarily focused on the electric vehicle, where electronic component requirements are particularly high.

The number and complexity of ECUs are rising, with the quantity of ECUs in a medium-sized vehicle set to rise from 70 to around 100 in the next five years. These miniature PCs are connected in a network, and need to interact reliably and flawlessly with 4,000-8,000 chips. ECUs must be durable and resistant, as in addition to the strict compliance requirements which must be met, their chips and components are exposed to stress during breaks, such as those in the battery management system when quick-charging or charging overnight.

Electronic systems must be designed to last an average of more than 30,000 operating hours, almost four times longer than today’s standard of around 8,000 operating hours. Until now, ECUs in electric cars have been improved through costly, time-consuming and elaborate specific manual work. Having researched methods and procedures for standardised development processes, to be used across the entire automotive value chain, RESCAR has resulted in a cross-industry solution that enables upgrading of ECUs in a considerably more efficient way.

Amongst other improvements, special robustness analyses have been devised, which help check and confirm the suitability of planned ECUs or chips for the intended field of application during early phases of development. A requirement profile, as a fixed component of the technical specifications for the ECU, includes all relevant data for a vehicle. The RESCAR partners have standardised the data to the required level of detail within their respective value stage, so that the data can be used consistently by all.

In the changeover of central automotive ECUs, such as for steering and braking from completely mechanical and hydraulic to mechatronic systems, the RESCAR results help ECUs to meet the highest safety standards. Safety aspects, numerous different interactions between components and their interdependencies can now already be taken into account during the development of ECUs and chips. They can also be geared towards the requirements of the respective application.