Electrification & Electromobility impact on Diagnostics of Autotech
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Background
The present trend of Electrification is one of the major technology developments for future powertrain in the automotive industry. Diadrom are involved in several customer projects which includes the transition from combustion engines to hybrid-, plug-in hybrid – or fully electric powertrain.
The general findings from these projects are that the transition is a huge challenge when the combustion engine is taken out of the equation for the electrical control unit (ECU) & electrical/electronic architecture development.
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Present
First is the transition from a product with one combustion engine to a product that may have several electric motors and one or several traction batteries that sums up to an electric powertrain. The electric powertrain replaces the combustion engine as an important component for continuous diagnostics on the aftermarket, with focus on performance, usage patterns, and degradation. Moreover, the battery diagnostics becomes an excellent use case for remote diagnostics, both in terms of readout of data and deployment of software updates.
Regarding the ECU basic software (e.g., diagnostics and software download), there are major changes in the dependencies for the ECU software going from combustion engine to electric motor. For example, the engine-related properties, such as ignition, cranking, idling, and running modes, is now replaced by low and high voltage systems, on/off, and electric motor still or running that needs to be managed. This is even more complexed in a mixed architecture used for both combustion engines, hybrid, and battery electric applications.
Furthermore, the combustion engine was a driver for emission related and legislated diagnostics and will now be removed and replaced with diagnostics for ensuring the reliability and performance of the electric powertrain.
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Future
The challenges this transition bring drives a further need for activities already performed to some degree but needs to analyse and researched further to fit the new paradigm of Electrification & Electromobility on Diagnostics.
Furthermore, there are three main success factors that Diadrom has seen with our customers are:
- Close collaboration between R&D and IT-projects to ensure:
- synchronized time plans, milestones, and scope/requirements
- correct requirements, implementation and usage of life cycle management systems and integration between on – and off-board systems
- Extensive testing and verification of on-board diagnostics features, both on ECU level and complete system level
- Extensive testing and verification of integration between on – and off-board systems, both for manufacturing, aftermarket, including remote scenarios
If you would like more information or a demonstration of our products, please contact sales@diadrom.se.
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