OEM&Lieferant Ausgabe 1/2019

102 IT and Automotive Intelligent, systematic data acquisition Storing entire test drives By Thomas Schlotter, Product Manager responsible for the ES820 Drive Recorder at ETAS GmbH Electronics are the neural system of modern vehicles. Increasingly, electronic systems operate in connected envi- ronments and control safety-relevant functions – and that makes them even more complex to develop, calibrate, and validate. Developers need to come up with viable solutions that can keep pace with future developments. One promising approach is to systematically collect data from vehicle systems: Used intelligently, this data can render some test drives unnecessary, as well as facilitating collaboration between teams spread across different locations. Improvisation is the name of the game in demonstrator vehicles. Piles of measure- ment hardware fill the trunk, connected by a tangled mass of cables that often leads to an off-the-shelf laptop on the passenger seat. This kind of setup is acceptable up to a point, but its flaws become evident once you start performing winter tests in arctic temperatures. Even in less extreme condi- tions, this improvised set of hardware poses a very real risk of cables coming loose or data recording being interrupted for some other reason during the test drive. With devel- opment cycles for new models running to ever tighter deadlines – and limited time available to spend on expensive hardware prototypes – these kinds of errors simply shouldn’t be allowed to happen. Images: © ETAS GmbH Given the growing number of ECUs and the increasing importance of electronically controlled vehicle functions, well-designed measuring equipment is crucial. As well as ensuring reliable measurements in any tem- perature range, it must stand up to vibrations and mechanical shocks and offer interfaces for all buses and networks commonly used in modern vehicles. It also needs to be compati- ble with existing measurement and diagnostic tools to enable calibration and test engineers to seamlessly integrate the new equipment into their standard processes. Based on stable hardware designed for automotive use For some time now, ETAS has been actively developing these kinds of reliable hardware solutions to provide a professional basis for Memory module and docking station