Development of Sensor Emulators for Testing the Safety Mechanisms of Sensor Interfaces in Automotive Electronics

The test equipment used in automotive industry for evaluating the behavior of electric/electronic (E/E) system includes, in most of the cases, emulators of electrical car environment. The device under test (DUT) is an electronic module (that is, Electronic Control Unit – ECU) whose inputs and outputs are stimulated/loaded with the corresponding input signals from sensors or switches, and proper actuators. The most convenient way to cover all test requirements is to emulate all these inputs and outputs and control the signal parameters using a computerized system. By adding the vehicle simulation data in the control loop, the setup is called Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL). Considering the safety mechanisms implemented in safety critical systems in a vehicle, the test equipment can be adapted to directly address the safety requirements coverage and automatic test report generation, as described in ISO26262 Automotive Safety series of standards. This paper aims the development of sensor emulators, as part of a HiL system, in such a way that simplifies the hardware test setup and covers as much as possible all test cases defined for hardware integration of the DUT.

I. Introduction

Development of electronic hardware for automotive industry is governed by safety rules and standards, therefore the verification is a mandatory step during the safety lifecycle [1]. A complete sensor interface (comprising by sensor itself, connectors and cables, and ECU sensor interface) is subject to hardware integration [2]. The hardware integration tests categories are: 1.

Functional testing

2.

Fault injection testing

3.

Electrical testing