Math-Based Control Logic Development for Automotive Industrial Applications: Issues, Challenges and Solution

Abstract

Intensive global competition forces automotive manufacturers to develop and produce vehicles at lower cost with shorter life cycles and better quality. Faster Vehicle Development Process (VDP) improve profitability by reducing the time and cost related to designing, engineering and launching a new vehicle model. More importantly, it enables automotive makers to react quickly to trend shift in market, e.g., recent shift from SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle) to small fuel efficient vehicle. However, the current manufacturing system design (especially control logic design), key part of VDP, is labor intensive and time consuming, and design quality and performance are highly dependent on the designer’s knowledge and experience. This paper discusses the issues and challenges identified in the current logic development process. A new method to automatically generate control logic using formal method is proposed. In this approach, the required information is collected and modeled as Automata. Possible control logic sequences are then calculated and the optimal one is identified from a set of alternative solutions. This paper also discusses how to implement and integrate the proposed method into the automotive manufacturing engineering process. The method is applied to automotive industry examples, and results are presented. Based on these case studies, this math-based approach can improve the quality of controls logic codes, and reduce ramp-up time and engineering cost significantly.