Automotive

Engineering Tasks

• System Specification and Modeling
• Embedded System Design
• System Integration, Calibration, and Dynamometer Testing
• Vehicle Analysis and Validation

System Integration, Calibration, and Dynamometer Testing

Calibration, testing, and validation of vehicle systems have traditionally been accomplished on lab benches, in dynamometer cells, and in vehicles. The expense associated with prototype vehicles and test cell time is causing automotive customers to investigate more analytical methods for accomplishing these tasks in the desktop workstation environment.

Powertrain Calibration, Testing, and Validation
When control system and powertrain hardware become available, powertrain engineers and calibrators use MathWorks products to validate system performance against the original requirements.

OEMs and suppliers perform analytical calibration of powertrain control systems using the Model-Based Calibration Toolbox™ product. With this tool, they reduce dynamometer testing time, increase engineering productivity, and improve powertrain performance and reliability in high degree-of-freedom systems that are otherwise difficult to understand and calibrate.

Calibration analysis is visualized within the MATLAB environment, showing pressure ratios and engine performance envelopes. Click on image to see enlarged view.

 

With interfaces to calibration tools, such as ATI's VISION and ETAS INCA, you can use MATLAB® to augment capabilities. For example, use the MATLAB environment and toolboxes to run statistical analysis and design of experiments (DOEs) and other advanced modeling and optimization techniques. Also use MATLAB to communicate with and control calibration tools and build custom tools and analysis procedures.

Dynamometer and Test Cell Applications
Modeling vehicle, road, and driver behaviors is simplified with the flexible continuous- and discrete-time simulation capabilities in a Simulink® environment. With the Real-Time Workshop® product, you can convert these models to executable code and download it into dynamometer stands for powertrain, suspension, and chassis applications. Partners such as MTS and FEV provide MATLAB and Simulink model libraries and interfaces for their dynamometer systems, enabling you to reuse models from the design stages for online dynamometer testing.

Testing and Measurement
To test and validate your design, you can access plug-in acquisition boards and GPIB/VXI/RS-232 compatible instrumentation through MATLAB, Data Acquisition Toolbox™ software, and the Instrument Control Toolbox™ product. 2-D, 3-D, and animated visualization techniques in MATLAB, combined with its numeric computation capabilities, give you insight into experimental data and test cell results.

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