EPN Automotive Electronics Blog

Control over F1 cars

When there are 50 people working at high speed on a strange looking, logo-adorned vehicle and one guy sitting low and dry who doesn't do much more than tapping a pedal with his big toe, this guy is the public hero and the whole thing is called Formula 1 racing. These days, even the big toe tapping isn't much of a challenge anymore, since there are so many sensors and actors at work.

CAN and LIN out of the palm

In vehicle assembly or the manufacture of mechatronic assemblies and systems it is often the case that operating functions must be executed at units to be mounted in vehicles without availability of related ECUs and control elements. This is the moment for a handheld terminal supporting those bus systems.

Sensors against collisions

A big deal for Jenoptik, manufacturer of optical components: The East-Germany-based company just signed a long-term delivery contract with automotive supplier Magna and expands its production of sensors for the automotive industry.

Prototyping Lambda Probe

As cars become increasingly environmentally friendly, engine and exhaust control electronics get more and more complex. One consequence is that today it’s more or less impossible even to change a spark plug on one’s own, another is the pure intricacy of the design and development process.

Measuring LIN

While LIN is the PHY- and protocol-wise the simplest of the currently used bus systems in cars, more often than not analysing systems know more about CAN , Flexray or even MOST than about the uncomplicated two-wire connection.

Joint measurement

Ipetronik has found a new partner for amperometry: The manufacturer of automotive measurement technology has negotiated a worldwide cooperation agreement with Stuttgart-based Stefan Klaric GmbH & Co. KG.

MSO analyses FlexRay

Youngsters may not remember the ‘ancient’ times when radio was the only electronic (well, more or less) device in a car. Nowadays almost every component of the vehicle has some electronic feature or other that makes specialized internal communications networks necessary. One of these bus systems is FlexRay, a general purpose high-speed protocol with safety-critical features. Yokogawa has kept an eye on it: A FlexRay serial bus analysis function is now available as an option to the 4-channel models in the DLM2000 series of mixed-signal oscilloscopes.

embedded world 2010: That’s how the future will look like

Despite the crisis, the the industry’s international get-together continues its growth: The trade show embedded world 2010 is setting trends and records. Especially within the automotive area there is a lot of movement going on: The amount of electronics, software and control devices installed in motor vehicles is growing dramatically, and the move towards electric cars will only strengthen this trend.

Test myCAR

Is there a reason for the enormous variety of software test solutions for automotive bus communication? There might be a connection to the similarly enormous variety of combinations of test system functions that the particular component supplier provides. Therefore, the required test sequencers are not only rather unique but also quite expensive – a win-win situation for both sides, but someone has to pay the bill. If there is a sinister scheme behind this, it might just come to an end soon. Goepel Electronic has developed an interactive ECU communication for Test and Diagnosis, called myCAR.

Functional safety all over

There is no doubt that safety is one of the main topics of the future automotive market. This might be the reason that in its latest version 6.1, the tool RiskCAT from Hitex Development Tools provides various enhancements and support for ISO 26262 (DIS).