Priority-based Multi-level Monitoring of Signal Integrity in a Distributed Powertrain Control System

With the increasing numbers and importance of Electronic Control Units (ECUs) in modern automobiles, there is a need to monitor system and signal integrity to enable desired system behavior. Among the various signals in a vehicle, those associated with torque commands must be prioritized over others while preserving signal integrity as they have a large impact on meeting the powertrain performance and safety requirements. In the case of a Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV), there are multiple torque actuators (Motor, ICE) that need to be controlled and failure to do so can damage the powertrain. Hence in all cases, the torque requested by the driver should be the same as the sum of the outputs of all the torque actuators and within the limits, which is referred to as ensuring Torque Security (TS). In this paper, we propose a priority-based multi-level signal integrity monitoring technique in which we divide controller signals into different groups and monitor them by making use of performance counters. The proposed technique was implemented and verified using Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) testing as a part of the Colorado State University (CSU) EcoCAR3 advanced vehicle technology competition.