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THE HANSEN REPORT ON AUTOMOTIVE ELECTRONICS. A Business and Technology Newsletter VOL. 18, NO. 6◆◆ PORTSMOUTH, NH USA JULY/AUGUST 2005 Software Process BMW Leads in Chassis Control Standards Gaining FlexRay Network Is Key Enabler from steering angle, acceleration and ride height sensors. Influence FlexRay is not just for steer- or brake- “This is a pilot project for us to learn by-wire anymore. BMW is about to bring what it means to bring FlexRay into a se- As software becomes more and more to market some groundbreaking new chas- ries car,” noted Karl-Heinz Gaubatz, gen- essential to the delivery of vehicle fea- sis control features implemented on a eral manager of electronics driving tures, carmakers and suppliers, particularly FlexRay network—a world’s first. This dynamics and lateral dynamics for BMW. in the West, are taking steps to ensure unexpected deployment of FlexRay comes BMW will build 15,000 cars per year with that their software development processes well before by-wire brakes or steering will this FlexRay application so the carmaker yield high-quality, reliable products. Two be ready for production vehicles. and its suppliers can gain experience with approaches have emerged: CMMI (Capa- By-wire systems operate without me- the network hardware and software before bility Maturity Model Integration) and chanical or hydraulic linkages so they it goes into high volume production. ISO/IEC (International Standards Orga- need safety-critical components such as “In the future, all new cars from BMW nization/International Electro-technical FlexRay to ensure reliability. FlexRay is a that come into production after 2006 will Commission) 15504, a.k.a. SPICE. time-triggered, deterministic data commu- have FlexRay as a complete bus system in At this time, CMMI is the approach nications network that is many times the car,” said Mr. Gaubatz. Indeed, the most widely applied around the world, faster than CAN (Controller Area Net- new BMW 7 series due in late 2008 will either “as is” or customized to fit a work), the communications bus that car- introduce a FlexRay-linked integrated company’s unique approach to continuous makers have been using for chassis control chassis management (ICM) system that improvement. SPICE is exclusively fa- applications. But BMW’s pioneering ap- will coordinate damping, braking and vored by Volkswagen and Continental plication of FlexRay will lead other car- steering from one central ECU. One re- Automotive Systems, but other compa- makers to use, or at least consider using, sult will be active yaw-torque control. “If nies including Mercedes, Chrysler, Valeo, FlexRay in place of CAN in future real- you go around a corner and the car begins Delphi and Visteon are also involved to time control applications, first in chassis to drift where the rear part of the car is some degree with CMMI. In December control and later in powertrain control. coming faster than the front, then you can 2004, five German carmakers within the A FlexRay bus will first be used in control that with the braking system and HIS (Herstellerinitiative Software) inter- BMW’s redesigned X5 SAV (sports activ- the steering angle adjustment,” explained est group agreed to apply the SPICE as- ity vehicle), due in 2006, in an electronic Mr. Gaubatz. sessment method. damper control system to link an elec- Toyota bases it own software process tronic control unit to four variable Chassis Innovation development requirement loosely on damper actuators. Damping forces are var- “While I can’t talk specifically about CMMI. And while it is considering ied by a current-driven linear magnetic them, we have a number of chassis inno- CMMI processes, Honda has not yet valve. The damper control system calcu- vations in the queue,” said Mr. Gaubatz. adopted either approach. Nissan, which lates proper damping forces using data Turn to FlexRay, page 2 writes no software in-house, doesn’t use Comparing CAN with FlexRay either standard when selecting suppliers. Nevertheless, Toyota, Honda and Nissan Characteristic CAN FlexRay cars suffer fewer quality problems resulting Data rate (gross) 500 kbit/s 10 Mbit/s from electronics, software and electrical Data rate (net) <200 kbit/s 5 Mbits/s parts compared with American- and Ger- Cycle time (message) >=10 ms 1 – 2 ms man-made vehicles sold in the United Message jitter 0 – >30 ms <2 µs States. German-made vehicles have had (depending on BUS load and ID) the greatest number of E/E problems. The Message delay 10 – 20 ms 1 – 2 ms table on page 8 describes how major car- Message delay with gateway 11 – >50 ms 1 – 2 ms (no gateway necessary) makers and suppliers are dealing with Synchronization STG not possible <2 µs CMMI and SPICE software development Redundancy none 2 channels methodologies. Maximum allowed load 35% 100% Turn to Software, page 3 Source: BMW FlexRay... Continued from page 1 “The main innovations at BMW are com- But now BMW has taken the role as them certain to get through. Claas ing in the chassis area and driving assis- FlexRay’s leading advocate, because Bracklo, BMW manager in charge of E/E tance, in steering, damping and braking. FlexRay is an essential ingredient to the architecture and systems design, described On the engine side, the last big innova- carmaker’s advanced chassis control sys- the disadvantage of CAN: “With CAN, tion was direct injection. We had electri- tems that will be brought to market over messages have to compete with each other cal valve train in development for years, the next three or four years. In contrast, to get through; access to the CAN net- but nobody is working on that now for a Mercedes’ new S class, coming this fall, work is actually a matter of chance. We series car,” he noted. won’t employ a FlexRay network. That manage this situation by over-sampling. Upcoming BMW models will soon em- suggests that FlexRay won’t be needed at For example, if we need some piece of in- ploy a FlexRay bus to connect all five ve- Mercedes anytime soon. In the past, new formation every hundred milliseconds, we hicle domains: infotainment, body Mercedes technology has appeared in might transfer the data every 10 millisec- controller, powertrain control, safety (air- other Mercedes models only after it has onds. The need to over-sample leads to bag) and chassis control (brakes, damping been presented in the S class. The next S the bandwidth problem with CAN.” and steering). Of the many possible new class redesign won’t come for another FlexRay’s deterministic behavior means features involving chassis controls, one is seven to eight years. that you don’t have to over-sample. using the steering wheel to alert the driver Since each new node brings more traf- that he has wandered out of his lane by CAN Limitations fic, only a limited number of nodes can be vibrating the steering wheel, as if the ve- FlexRay provides significant advan- attached to each CAN bus. Over the hicle is driving over a rumble strip. tages over CAN communications net- years, as more features were added, BMW BMW and Mercedes were jointly re- works. (Please see the chart on page 1.) has had to add additional CAN buses. sponsible for getting FlexRay off the Not only can FlexRay transmit messages Each CAN bus can handle no more than ground; in the fall of 1999 the two car- at a much faster rate, the protocol is time- 500 kilobits per second, gross. Further, to makers announced that they would coop- deterministic, meaning that specific time be sure that messages get though, each bus erate to develop and promote FlexRay. slots are allocated for all messages, making should only be used up to 35% of its full capacity. Given all of the new vehicle fea- Coordination Through a Hierarchical Structure tures coming soon to the new 7 series in 2008, BMW would have needed a total of “BMW’s aim is to provide stability in every independently. Mr. Gaubatz added: “If every six CAN buses. With every additional dimension,” said Claas Bracklo, “up, down, ECU makes independent decisions, one ECU CAN bus a gateway is needed to connect right, left, back and forth. This is what will might decide to make the vehicle yaw to the one bus to another. “We don’t want that differentiate BMWs from other vehicles.” To right while another ECU might call for a yaw because those gateways make the vehicle accomplish that, BMW has adopted a system to the left—then the car does nothing.” continued on page 3 in which control functions are organized into a As part of its quality “categorical impera- hierarchy. With hierarchical control, all of the tives,” DaimlerChrysler announced in May THE HANSEN REPORT ON chassis control functions are coordinated by 2004 that it would implement hierarchical bus AUTOMOTIVE ELECTRONICS the integrated chassis management ECU. systems based on CAN, LIN, MOST and © 2005 Paul Hansen Associates, 150 Hierarchical architecture contrasts with FlexRay standards and on the Autosar soft- Pinehurst Rd., Portsmouth, NH 03801, today’s distributed control architecture where ware architecture. USA. Telephone: 603-431-5859. 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