Abstract
Modern high performance gasoline engines are characterised by high cylinder numbers, maximum engine speed of 8000 rpm (or greater) and a large number of input signals that need to be processed by the Engine Control Unit (ECU). In addition these engines normally represent the top level of an engine family and are therefore equipped with a large number of actuators controlled by the Engine Management System (EMS).
Taking into account all these requirements, mass production ECUs run out of capacity - in terms of computing performance as well as concerning the required I/0 or pinning. In order to meet all the requirements, the EMS has to be divided into two subsystems which are performed by two separate ECUs.
Due to the fact, that some of the essential sensors (e.g. the pedal sensor in a drive-by-wire system) are available only once, but most of the torque influencing actuators are implemented at least twice, the development of a double ECU system requires an appropriate structure of engine control and diagnosis as well as an overall system monitoring concept.
The presentation will introduce such a double ECU system and will briefly explain typical system requirements. This will result in the definition and description of a functional structure to manage all these requirements and will end up with a suggestion how to control an EMS with two ECUs in the future.