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Adoption of new technology with ever increasing complexity challenges organizational structures and processes as subsystem ownership crosses several powertrain subsystem boundaries (and thereby involves multiple departments). Integrating such technology without introducing inadvertent failure modes can be a difficult task. This paper illustrates an upfront approach to understanding the potential system impact of using an example new technology. In product development activities involving primarily reuse of known technologies, organizational and subsystem boundaries are generally clear. Interfaces are well established and responsibilities for managing failure mode avoidance are generally known. Implementation of new technology which does not naturally fit the well-established organizational definitions and boundaries presents distinctive challenges to system design, system integration, and verification using failure mode avoidance (FMA).

Environmental awareness and fuel economy legislation has resulted in greater emphasis on developing more fuel efficient vehicles. As such, achieving fuel economy improvements has become a top priority in the automotive field. Companies are constantly investigating and developing new advanced technologies, such as hybrid electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, improved turbo-charged gasoline direct injection engines, new efficient powershift transmissions, and lighter weight vehicles. In addition, significant research and development is being performed on energy management control systems that can improve fuel economy of vehicles. Another area of research for improving fuel economy and environmental awareness is based on improving the customer's driving behavior and style without significantly impacting the driver's expectations and requirements.

This paper describes a new architecture for a bi-fuel vehicle engine control system, which can reduce system cost while improving function. The proposed architecture uses a modified (dual parameter) PCM strategy to control operation on both fuels, with a simpler additional module to drive fuel injectors and interface to other alternative fuel components. It is shown that this architecture results in improved fuel control and lower tailpipe emissions compared to typical aftermarket systems. Impact on the development process and base vehicle wiring are minimized.