Extensible prototyping

While automotive electronics makes driving much more comfortable, »electronified« modern cars also have shorter lifetime and design time than »oldtimers«. So, the new car with the heatable cigarette lighter won’t last for 20+ years like but we won’t have to wait 10 years for the successor. Development tools need to develop even faster…

dSpace has launched two new variants of its rapid control prototyping platform »MicroAutoBox II«. These are real-time systems for fast function prototyping in fullpass and bypass scenarios. MicroAutoBox II can be used for applications such as driver assistance systems, body control, powertrain (with conventional, hybrid or electric drives), x-by-wire applications, and aerospace applications. The Matlab/Simulink/Stateflow modeling tools are seamlessly integrated into the dSpace prototyping environment. Developers can implement their Simulink models on the MicroAutoBox II automatically with the Real-Time Interface (RTI) software, the connection between dSPACE hardware and the modeling tool.

(MicroAutoBoxII) 

The two latest additions to the family have more powerful I/O interfaces, one also has an FPGA board for extra extension options. For the end of 2010, all models will support live data recording with a flight recorder on USB mass storage devices.
The FPGA board integrated into MicroAutoBox II 1401/1511/1512 acts as an extendable platform that may be adapted for special projects. The manufacturer plans to offer extension modules that can be mounted on the FPGA board to provide I/O interfaces for current application fields such as controlling electric motors.
The I/O interfaces of the new models are supposed to make it easier to develop applications like cylinder pressure-based motor controls.

 (Dr. Herbert Hanselmann, President of dSpace)

For example, the analogue interfaces have 16-bit resolution and a sampling rate of 1 MSample/s for the precise capture of dynamic cylinder pressure signals. A new bus controller for applications with CAN, LIN and FlexRay bus traffic has higher bandwidth than in former MicroAutoBoxes.