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Fault detection is increasingly an essential part of vehicle development. Integrating such fault detection subsystems raises the reliability, maintainability, and safety of automobile components. Weak shock absorbers can lead to significantly longer braking distances (up to 20%) and furthermore worsen the driving handling. Reduced tire pressure increases the wear of the tire dramatically and may lead to punctures due to an overheating of the tire. Recent studies show that 40% of all drivers have set wrong tire pressures (Wachter, 1994). Therefore, this paper presents fault detection algorithms for the suspension system implemented on a Hitachi SH7055 microcontroller. Real measurements of a vehicle are made to proof the algorithms.

Because of increasing requirements for low emissions and fuel consumption, combustion engines are getting more and more control inputs, like multiple injection, exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), turbocharger valve position (TVP), variable valve timing (VVT), etc. With the addition of manipulated variables, the required measurement time for obtaining the steady-state characteristics and control look-up tables rises exponentially. A comprehensive design of the measurement experiment is becoming more and more essential. The objective is to measure the engine characteristics and properties with a minimum number of measurement points (with firstly concentrating on the stationary behavior). A new methodology is presented to automatically determine characteristic mappings by incorporating prior knowledge. Since physical modeling of the engine behavior is mostly not appropriate, prior knowledge for experimental design is derived by evaluating measurement data.

Automotive engineering requires dynamic system simulation software. To meet future legislated emission and con-sumption standards, a vehicle has to be considered as a group of interacting systems. NAGREMA is an automotive simulation software with the focal point on the accessory drive. Variations of the standard V-belt configuration can be compared with decentralized approaches using electric or electro-hydraulic drives. NAGREMA is implemented using MATLAB/Simulink, provides a graphical user interface and a set of vehicle, engine and accessory templates. It reduces model complexity by dividing the vehicle, the engine, the accessory drive and the control system into hierarchically organized subsystems.