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The complexity of automotive systems continues to rise. Consumers demand more and more features on their vehicles, including those that provide comfort, convenience, and safety. At the same time, the reliability of automobiles continues to improve. Today's automobile manufacturers are looking for suppliers that can provide increased feature content, and at the same time provide highly reliable, flawlessly executed systems. This paper will describe a systems engineering process that is employed at one automotive industry supplier. Borrowing a page from the aerospace industry, we'll describe a rigorous process and methodology for developing and documenting requirements, creating solutions to meet those requirements, and validating those solutions against the requirements. Several case studies will be described that demonstrate the benefits derived through the use of the process, its tools and its methodologies.

Automotive occupant safety continues to evolve. At present this area has gathered a strong consumer interest which the vehicle manufacturers are tapping into with the introduction of many new safety technologies. Initially, individual passive devices and features such as seatbelts, knee- bolsters, structural crush zones, airbags etc., were developed for to help save lives and minimize injuries in accidents. Over the years, preventive measures such as improving visibility, headlights, windshield wipers, tire traction etc., were deployed to help reduce the probability of getting into an accident. With tremendous new research and improvements in electronics, we are at the stage of helping to actively avoid accidents in certain situations as well as providing increased protection to vehicle occupants and pedestrians.

The industry strategy for automotive safety systems has been evolving over the last 20 years. Initially, individual passive devices and features such as seatbelts, airbags, knee bolsters, crush zones, etc. were developed for saving lives and minimizing injuries when an accident occurs. Later, preventive measures such as improving visibility, headlights, windshield wipers, tire traction, etc. were deployed to reduce the probability of getting into an accident. Now we are at the stage of actively avoiding accidents as well as providing maximum protection to the vehicle occupants and even pedestrians. Systems that are on the threshold of being deployed or under intense development include collision detection / warning / intervention systems, lane departure warning, drowsy driver detection, and advanced safety interiors.

It has been shown that approximately 15.9 million liters of gasoline per day are wasted ($2 billion annually) in the United States due to improper tire inflation. Additionally, as automotive manufacturers begin using extended mobility, or run-flat tires, a need exists for a system which can detect an underinflated tire. We also know that underinflated tires cause premature tread wear and tear. Optimizing tire life and fuel economy are beneficial to society in general. In the passenger car market, voice of the consumer dictates: 1. Immediate notification of a low tire condition; 2. Key-on notification; 3. No interaction from driver to extinguish telltale once problem resolved; 4. Independent tire monitoring. This paper will describe a rf-based low tire pressure warning system which is being developed by Delco Electronics Corporation.