*Please note this article originally published in EDN.
Millimeter-wave (mmWave) radar is one of the primary sensing modalities for automotive and industrial applications because of its ability to detect objects from few centimeters to several hundred meters with high distance, angle and velocity accuracy, even in challenging environmental conditions.
A typical radar sensor consists…
Jürgen Belz, senior consultant, functional safety and cybersecurity at Prometo, co-authored this technical article.
The migration from internal combustion engines (ICEs) to electric vehicles (EVs) requires at least five new electrical/electronic/programmable electronic (E/E/PE) systems. Figure 1 depicts these systems within an EV.
Figure 1: Block diagram of a typical EV powertrain
In order to zero out tailpipe…
Bluetooth® Low Energy is on a path to become ubiquitous. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group estimates that by 2024, all new phones, tablets and laptops will support Bluetooth Classic and Bluetooth Low Energy. They also expect 35% of devices to ship with single-mode Bluetooth Low Energy by 2024, which represents 300% growth in annual shipments.
The reason for this is the versatility of Bluetooth Low Energy. Bluetooth…
Jürgen Belz, senior consultant, functional safety and cybersecurity at PROMETO co-authored this technical article.
With functional safety and security concerns in automotive electronics gaining attention, including in standards bodies, it’s important for automotive designers to enable functionally safe and secure automotive electric powertrains. Functional safety, cybersecurity and high-voltage safety play an important…
A wireless BMS allows vehicle designers can remove heavy, expensive, maintenance-prone cabling and improve the reliability and efficiency of hybrid and electric or hybrid vehicles (HEV/EV). TI’s solution for wireless BMS empowers you to reduce the complexity of your designs, improve reliability and reduce vehicle weight to extend driving range.
To speed automakers’ development time for wireless BMS, we requested…
Think of a passenger car as a collection of electronic control units (ECUs) that are distributed across the length and breadth of the car and talk to each other using different networks. When adding more advanced automotive electronics for vehicle-to-everything (V2X), automated driving and vehicle electrification, the number of ECUs increases and the amount of data exchanged grows.
Moreover, the increased number of ECUs…
Recently, there has been a big push in the automotive lighting industry to improve both vehicle headlight functionality and driver visibility, which has led to the development of adaptive driving beam (ADB) headlights. ADB is an automotive exterior lighting system that automatically controls the high beam, to allow the driver to focus on the road ahead without manually controlling…
Most of today’s automotive vehicles use some level of autonomy. The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) defines five levels of autonomy, from level 0 to level 5 (Figure 1). In this technical article, I’ll discuss the DC/DC power-supply needs…
Automotive suppliers and original equipment manufacturers are heavily investing software R&D efforts on adding new functions and features to achieve autonomy, electrification and connectivity. Still, enabling these functions by adding more electronic control units (ECUs) is not sustainable when it results in increased complexity and cost.
There are two ways to consolidate and…
The core function of the body control module (BCM) is to monitor inputs such as the state of the high-beam switch and enable or disable power to the corresponding loads such as the high-beam lamp. The BCM also includes circuits that monitor different functions for faults. When a fault is detected, the driver could be notified, in some cases additional circuits in the BCM drive…
Co-authored by Kevin Stauder, systems engineer, automotive body electronics and lighting
For decades, the internal combustion engine (ICE) has run the car as well as the heating and cooling systems. As the automotive industry electrifies and transitions to hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) with small combustion engines or fully electric vehicles (EVs) with no engine at all, how will the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning…
Technology availability, market and environmental regulations, and infrastructure buildout are aligning to turn a long-forecasted future of full-electric vehicles (EVs) into reality. According to the International Energy Agency’s Global EV Outlook 2020, sales of EVs, including plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), reached a global peak of 2.1 million in 2019, increasing the total number of such vehicles on the…
This article was originally published on eeworldonline.com.
A local dimming backlight technology individually adjusts LEDs in an LCD panel to save power and improve contrast ratios in automotive displays. Compared to globally dimmed displays and organic LEDs (OLEDs), local dimming with LEDs is a more practical design choice because it can withstand the extreme temperatures and vibration common in automotive applications…
The U.K., Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark and France have already proposed plans to outlaw internal combustion engines (ICE), with China also studying when to ban ICE vehicles. So the writing is on the wall that powerful electric motors, also known as traction motors, will play a significant and increasing role as the engine propelling the vehicle. But electric motors are already dominant in many other automotive applications…
This article was originally published on eeworldonline.com.
Automotive specifications and environmental conditions have caused the automotive display market to lag behind the consumer display industry in contrast ratio, black levels, resolution, curvature and form factor. Automakers are trying to differentiate their infotainment human-machine interface (HMI) displays and catch up to the technological advances now common…
Somewhere in the world today, an automotive engineer is envisioning an infotainment system for a car that won’t be realized for another five years or more. This includes factoring in the power requirements for applications that exist only as concepts today. As infotainment systems evolve in sophistication and electronic functionality, the number of integrated circuits (ICs…
Functional safety standards like International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 615081 and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 262622 require that semiconductor device manufacturers address both systematic and random hardware failures. Systematic failures are managed and mitigated by following rigorous development processes. Random hardware failures must adhere to specified quantitative metrics to meet…
Functional safety design takes rigor, documentation and time to get it right. Whether you’re designing for the factory floor or cars on the highway, this white paper explains how TI is making it easier for you to find and use its integrated circuits (ICs) in your functional safety designs.
Read the white paper Streamlining functional safety in automotive and industrial.
The need for electrical energy inside the car is growing with the proliferation of automated driving functions and the popularity of comfort, convenience and infotainment features. Today’s vehicles have a growing number of sensors, actuators and electronic control modules (ECUs) that read sensors and control actuators. Simultaneously, the growing demand for hybrid and electric vehicles makes power efficiency an important…
As automotive camera technology advances with higher resolutions, dynamic ranges and frame rates, power-supply architectures need tailoring to the specific use-case requirements. In this article, I’ll review three strategies you can use to power your automotive camera module:
The focus in this article is on small-form…
This article was co-authored by Sam Jaffe.
As automotive systems continue to evolve, the number of applications requiring additional power continues to increase. Engineers designing higher-power systems often switch from low-dropout (LDO) regulators to DC/DC buck converters, given the latter’s improved efficiency and thermal performance. Unfortunately, making this switch comes…
This article was co-authored by Zach Imm.
Driver and pedestrian safety is a top priority for engineers working on vehicles today and in the future, both partially and fully autonomous. According to recent statistics, more than 73% of traffic accidents, especially for commercial vehicles, are caused by visual blind spots, cellphone use, driver fatigue and driver negligence. Studies show that equipping vehicles with advanced…
Exterior lighting, primarily used to illuminate ground areas near the door, can now be transformed into a projection system used for both vehicle communication and unique styling features.
A small lighting module utilizing the automotive grade DLP3021-Q1 digital micromirror device (DMD) can display an endless number of patterns in any color imaginable. OEMs are not only excited about the styling and customization possibilities…
By Krunal Maniar
The automotive industry is focused on creating a comfortable driving experience – but without compromising fuel efficiency or manufacturing costs. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are refreshing their audio system architectures frequently to enhance the user experience and ensure safety by incorporating new audio technologies…
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