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I t is a well-known fact that develop-ment departments in the automo-

tive industry are struggling with theincreasing pressures of shorter time-to-market while also facing the chal-lenge to develop complex electronicfunctions in order to satisfy today’sfuel savings, comfort and safety de-mands. Given this reality, PSEO serviceat PSA Peugeot Citroën saw a chanceto save time during integration andvalidation phases in rapid prototyping.PSEO is the rapid prototyping depart-ment for engine, chassis, and trans-mission management at PSA PeugeotCitroën. PSEO selected INTECRIO be-cause the tool offered a way to solvemany of their software bypass issueswhile at the same time saving timeand effort and facilitating the ex-change and sharing of function mod-els. In addition, PSEO saw the use ofINTECRIO as a way to eliminate inte-gration issues with function modulesprovided by external suppliers.

INTECRIO at PSA Peugeot CitroënETAS tools provide basis for more efficient teamwork

at PSA Peugeot Citroën

By Alexis Riera, PSA Peugeot Citroën,

and Guillaume François, ETAS

At PSA Peugeot Citroën, the PSEO (Prototypage et Simulation Electricité Electronique Organes) department uses rapid prototyping technology to evaluate new electronic functions and then teststhese electronic functions on benches and in vehicles to ensure their robustness for use in productionvehicles. Examples of such electronic functions are the Hill Assist in the Citroën C4 Picasso, the Stop &Start functionality in the Citroën C3, and particle filters regeneration for any new diesel engines. To meet the demands of shorter development cycles, PSEO decided in January 2005 to introduce the INTECRIO Integration Platform into PSA Peugeot Citroën’s existing tool environment. Six months after the rollout of INTECRIO, the department had streamlined the prototyping process at PSA Peugeot Citroën and is realizing time and effort savings of up to 50 percent.

PSA Peugeot Citroën’s rapid prototyping process for power-train systemsAs electronic experts, the PSEO teamsplay a key role within the developmentprocess for electronics: PSEO evaluatesinnovative electronic concepts in termsof their chance to result in robust func-tional specifications. In this process,PSEO must consider possible risks thatcould jeopardize a new concept’s real-ization in a production vehicle.

To do this, the department uses rapidprototyping technology to create com-plete control-command systems thatcan be tested and validated onbenches and in vehicles. For example,PSEO used their rapid prototypingprocess to evaluate gasoline directinjection strategies or the active sus-pension with variable damping for theCitroën C6. PSEO works closely withvarious departments.

For engine management functions forexample, PSEO must provide the nec-essary tools, methods, and technol-ogies to enable the validation of thenew algorithms developed by theCSMT department’s engine controlexperts (CSMT = Conception SystèmeMoteur Transmission). Working fromrequirement documents, CSMT cre-ates functional specification designs inthe form of models.

Once a Simulink® model is provided byCSMT, PSEO identifies and providesthe appropriate prototyping technol-ogy needed to create an executablemodel. PSEO creates or uses a proto-type ECU if the prototyped functionswill be ultimately integrated into anew ECU architecture, which is not yetavailable in existing production ECUs.Since all ECU functions are imple-mented in a prototype ECU, this isknown as a FULLPASS solution. If, onthe other hand, the prototyped func-tions are easily embeddable in an avail-able development ECU, PSEO selectsa BYPASS solution, meaning most ofthe existing ECU functions are ex-ecuted on the development ECUwhile new functions are executedon a prototype controller. At PSEOthis process often involves the ETASES1000 or ES910 and ETK technol-ogy.

To facilitate communication betweenvarious development partners, PSEOhas been chairing regular rapid proto-typing meetings with partner OEMssuch as Renault and Ford as well asengine control suppliers such as Bosch,Delphi Diesel Systems, VDO Auto-motive and rapid prototyping toolssuppliers such as ETAS. This cooper-ation helps PSEO to ensure thehomogeneity and continuity of itstools. PSEO’s leadership fosters aconstructive and long-term relation-ship between OEMs and tool suppliersthat allows each party to addressarising needs during developmentprojects and implement new featuresaccordingly.

Time savings of up to 50 percentwith INTECRIO in the rapid proto-typing process The introduction of INTECRIO into thedevelopment process simplified largeparts of the integration and validationeffort, enabled collaboration betweenvarious development teams early onand streamlined the developmentprocess as a whole. Here are the de-tails. INTECRIO is an integration plat-form that allows developers to workin their tool of choice, for example inSimulink® or ASCET, or hand-code inthe C programming language. Makinguse of INTECRIO’s unique flexibility,PSEO experts are able to build upthe complete validation system withCSMT’s Simulink® models, existingASCET models, or legacy code.

There is no longer a Simulink®-to-ASCET recoding phase – sometimes atime-consuming step in the process.With INTECRIO, up to 50 percent ofthe previous effort is eliminated.During the integration phase offunctional specifications, many itera-tion loops are necessary, but withINTECRIO this is not a problem: A newversion of a Simulink® model is inte-grated into an existing INTECRIO proj-ect in a few seconds. Since INTECRIOis fully open to any modeling lan-

guage, it is easy to integrate ASCETfunctions into the prototyping projectas well. Thus PSEO is able to reuse ex-isting ASCET functions and continueto develop new low level electronicfunctions such as the initializationphase, power latch strategies, orEEPROM management. By integratingINTECRIO into the rapid prototypingprocess, PSEO has enabled engine andelectronic experts to speak the same“language”. This ensures that theexecutable prototypes are preciselymatching the engine experts’ designs.

INTECRIO has also enabled PSA Peu-geot Citroën to save time during hard-ware integration. In INTECRIO severaldifferent hardware setups can be cre-ated and saved for the same validationproject. Vice versa, the same hardwareconfiguration can be reused for differ-ent validation projects. Once the soft-ware is compiled, the desired hard-ware setup can be called up and in-tegrated with the compiled software.Depending on the application, PSAPeugeot Citroën may be using variousES1000 configurations or ES910 con-figurations in a given project. How-ever, this is no longer problematicbecause with INTECRIO it is easy todefine the right hardware for the rightneed. And hardware asset manage-ment is easy with INTECRIO as well,as hardware can be used by variousteams without the necessity to changeanything, as long as the setups havebeen created and are available inINTECRIO.

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ES1000 and a complete acquisition

system installed in Peugeot 407 vehicle.

Alexis Riera, rapid prototyping expert at PSA Peugeot Citroën.

General Motors Relies on ETAS MeasurementModules

General Motors Relies on ETAS MeasurementModules

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Winter trials, development, and validation

with ETAS tools

By Claudia Hartwell,

ETAS, and Rob Taylor,

General Motors

US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) government regulations requirethat vehicles must meet specific safety requirements. With the passing of the latest safetystandard, FMVSS 126 (Electronic Stability Control Systems), OEMs are obligated to perform extensive testing, and to capture and record vehicle test data.

T raditionally, General Motors (GM)has utilized in-house data acqui-

sition systems for this purpose, butbegan looking for a commercial, off-the-shelf system, that would allow GMto meet its data acquisition require-ments. It was also important for GMto leverage existing investments intransducers and other instruments.One major requirement was that it bea true off-the-shelf system, includingboth data acquisition hardware andsoftware. The system had to be reliableand easy to set up.

As part of the search, GM’s ChassisControls Vehicle Validation staff con-ducted three technical evaluationson INCA, the calibration and mea-surement system from ETAS alreadyestablished within GM’s Powertrainoperations for ECU calibration. Thenew solution not only had to per-form all of the basics, such as dataacquisition from thermocouples andpressure sensors, electrical measure-ments, and data synchronizationfrom the CAN bus, but it also had toprovide a connection to engine andchassis controllers instrumented withETAS ETKs.

GM’s specifications were communi-cated to ETAS product develop-ment and as a result, many features inINCA V6.1 are based on GM’s require-ments, e.g., enhancements in themeasurement area (i.e., ability to zeroout bridges) and the capability to usea wider variety of transducers – trans-ducers typically found in chassisdevelopment (i.e., wheatstone-bridgebased brake line pressure transducersand wheel speed measurement trans-ducers) as opposed to traditionalpowertrain development.

Timing was important and neededto accommodate GM’s schedule for2007/2008 winter weather develop-ment and validation testing.

General Motors Relies on ETAS MeasurementModules

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Using INTECRIO as a common development tool called for betterquality Simulink® models The introduction of INTECRIO madesome process and methodologychanges necessary at PSA PeugeotCitroën. As the rigorous Simulink®-to-ASCET recoding phase was eliminat-ed, appropriate modeling rules andSimulink® libraries had to be defined inorder to ensure high quality Simulink®

models and to optimize the use ofINTECRIO. INTECRIO makes rigorousdemands on the quality of sourceelements such as A2L files and Simu-link® models. This quality improvementrequired more work in the beginning,since function developers were nowaware of addressing embedded sys-tems constraints such as executionmode, optimization, and real-timebehavior. However the time savings ofup to 50 percent were well worth theeffort. In fact, PSA Peugeot Citroën isexpecting to save more time in thefuture because the modeling know-how of INTECRIO users is continuallyincreasing.

PSEO has expertly handled any pro-cess changes caused by the introduc-tion of INTECRIO. For example, amodel review process was introducedat the beginning of the integrationphase. During this phase, reviewerscheck that constraints or technicaldata of the final target are properlyaddressed such as tasks priorities,data quantification, and functionfrequency adaptations. The reviewersalso check for compliance with mod-eling rules. To ensure that the needsof function developers are met,smaller model reviews are done when-ever an updated model is delivered.

The use of INTECRIO has streamlinedthe process at PSA Peugeot Citroënand improved the quality of theSimulink® models significantly. Be-cause electronic and engine expertshave the same reference, as there isonly one model for each function, thecommunication between departmentshas improved considerably.

INTECRIO is a good investment now and a great investment in thefuture The success of INTECRIO in the proto-typing process at PSA Peugeot Citroënis mainly due to the tool’s fast andefficient integration of Simulink® mod-els. This feature was clearly identifiedas the key to speed up rapid proto-typing and to improve collaborativework between engine and electronicexperts in the short term. However,INTECRIO is also a good investment inthe future. New versions of the toolare released based on a consistentproduct development plan. Further,ETAS development carefully con-siders its customers’ requests and userinput for an ongoing optimization ofINTECRIO and PSA Peugeot Citroën’sgrowing pool of expert INTECRIO userswill provide valuable feedback toETAS.

The INTECRIO product family is evolv-ing and now provides new featuressuch as legacy code integrationthrough INCODIO, the family mem-ber by ETAS partner SYSTECS, andAUTOSAR support. Since PSA PeugeotCitroën is cooperating with their sup-pliers in the development of reusableAUTOSAR software components, it isnow considering using INTECRIO tointegrate AUTOSAR components intoprototyping projects in order to ensurea behavior that is as close as possibleto the target ECU.

The product concept of INTECRIO al-ready makes new applications andadditional validation cases possible.PSA Peugeot Citroën is particularlyinterested in INTECRIO’s virtual proto-typing option, which the companyviews as a possible solution for glob-ally improving its prototyping processby introducing additional validationsteps such as Model-in-the-Loop,Software-in-the-Loop, or the virtualvalidation of AUTOSAR software com-ponents.

INTECRIO bypass project.