OEM&Lieferant Ausgabe 2/2020

90 IT and Automotive Future-proof test systems for vehicle control units Full control of charge management and more By Heiko Sutter, Senior Program Manager in the field of Test and Validation at ETAS GmbH The vehicle control unit (VCU) is set to play an increasingly important role, especially in electrified vehicles. Its performance capabilities make it the perfect choice for complex tasks such as coordinating all the components in the powertrain, including charge management, and handling computationally intensive, cross-domain tasks. Conse- quently, the VCU places major demands on the test environment, which ideally should be designed for end-to-end virtualization. From a technical perspective, modern Domain ECUs are significantly more complex than pre- vious ECUs. This increases the scope of test- ing required in ECU development. At the same time, automakers are under increasing pres- sure to bring new vehicles to market within the shortest possible timeframe. When it comes to testing, calibration, and validation, this combination of factors pushes purely hardware-based systems to their limits. The future lies in virtual systems. As a central control unit, the VCU controls and coordinates multiple powertrain components. It also features a connection to the cloud and – in the case of highly automated vehicles – “fail-operational” functions that ensure safe operation of the vehicle in an emergency. At higher configuration levels, the VCU also in- creasingly offers the performance capabilities required to support computationally intensive, cross-domain functions such as the connec- tion to Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). One of the VCU’s core features is the charging interface. This is because more and more ve- hicles are coming onto the market with bat- tery-electric powertrains, either as the sole Image/Graphic: © ETAS GmbH S H A R E