Lock & Load

INTERESTING ARTICLE

Personally i believe less is more .

http://www.autoweek.com/news.cms?newsId=102172

cheers
michael

xxup

I actually support the idea of separate sub-systems. Just imagine the issues around a single CPU for a car that serviced all components including engine management and electric windows. The electric window motor gets a bit stiff on cold mornings and draws much more currrent than normal. As the driver is winding the window up, the engine management subsystem detects what it thinks is a full throttle request and richens the fuel mixture, engine floods, car stalls and then 6 car pile up..

If you think that it sounds crazy, just have a look at www.microsoft.com at all the low priority things that can crash an operating system (engine management). :o

sco

Interesting but I wonder if it's all that accurate. I have a bit of an electronics background so I'm not afraid to attempt fixing my own gear when it breaks. I've never had to fix something directly related to a CPU (e.g bad connection on the CPU), it's most often been problems with wiring because it is wiring that moves the most. So if we have less CPUs this means more centralisation and more wiring. More wiring means more wiring faults.

If Mercedes screwed up by poorly selecting protocols that meant the seat control system had no idea that the navigation commands it was receiving were not for it (I bet they didn't use CAN for this), then saying it's all because of too many CPUs could be applying a brute force approach to solving a simple problem - using a smarter communications protocol. The fact of the matter is that building reliable systems distributed or not is not a simple task.

So I'd have to agree with xxup. The other problem with a single complex system is that if there is a fault, swapping out a complete unit is much more expensive. Wouldn't you be pi55ed off if you had to pay 3K for a new "car computer" because your seats don't remember their settings?