Fullpassing

Browse product by name...

Using a Prototyping System as a Flexible Experimental ECU

If a new ECU or a new set of control functions has to be developed from scratch, quick trials have to be run at an early stage to verify the correctness of the control strategy. Tests in a vehicle or on a test bench therefore have to be carried out even before the new ECU hardware becomes available.

Producing an application-specific prototype ECU for this purpose, e.g. by means of a modified production ECU, would be expensive, time-consuming and inflexible. Instead, developers can use a powerful off-the-shelf prototyping system which acts as an experimental ECU, but which has many advantages compared to other solutions.

The dSPACE prototyping system allows developers to concentrate completely on the new function design without having to worry about computing power and memory – the system offers plenty of both, ensuring maximum flexibility. Unlike a production-type ECU, programming a dSPACE prototyping system is easy. This makes it particularly convenient to change ECU function designs without having to do manual programming.

Function prototyping begins with graphical descriptions of control functions, created and tested in a modeling and simulation environment such as MATLAB^®/Simulink^®/Stateflow^®. Changes to the function model can therefore be carried out quickly and conveniently, and downloaded to the prototyping system via automatic code generation at a click. This procedure provides the shortest possible iteration times. I/O interfaces can be configured and easily integrated into the function model by means of a comprehensive graphical I/O block library which is part of the RTI software. Parameters of the control function can be changed and signals can be captured on-the-fly by means of or ControlDesk^®.

Fullpassing: the prototyping system completetly replaces the ECU

Bypassing