Cartronic-An Ordering Concept for Future Vehicle Control Systems 98C011

The continuously increasing performance of modern automotive microelectronics is leading to ever more complex open and closed-loop control functions. Rigid mechanical connections a broken down and electronics applied to make them controllable. Among the examples are camshaft control, or future systems for variable valve-lift control. In addition, the individual systems in the vehicle, such as engine management, transmission-shift control, and ABSR will be networked with one another. The result is a system alliance which communicates through a car-wide web.

The major challenge posed by this development in the future, lies in still being able to reliably control the complexity of the system alliance from the point of view of reliability and safety. This means that the suitable sensor and actuator basis, together with an architecture having fixed configuration rulings and matching development methods, are indispensable. The target is to apply modern technologies in order to achieve a modular functional structure in which the individual modules are for the most part decoupled from each other by means of suitable interfaces.

The advantages which thereby result for the emergence of new products, are further quality improvements due to the possibilities of re-use, and higher efficiency due to the distributed development of the individual function modules.

This contribution introduces the CARTRONIC concept developed by Bosch. It represents an answer to these challenges.