A Model based Test Environment for the Analysis of the System’s Behaviour during Power Supply Faults

Abstract:
The introduction of highly automated driving features demands a high reliability of safety critical components. Whether a critical component can maintain its function even in the event of a fault (fail-operational) is an import question. To ensure the needed safety and identify power supply architectures suited for this task, simulations can be very beneficial. Various power supply architectures can be tested in case of various power supply faults and the voltage stability of the overall system can be determined. Even though the voltage stability of the system can be a good measure to evaluate the systems behaviour during power supply faults, such disturbances can cause malfunctions of electronic components that are difficult to analyse in a simulation. Hence there is a need to access and evaluate the behaviour of safety critical components under these disturbances and ensure that they are working as intended. A new concept to evaluate the behaviour of safety critical components during the exposure of power supply system faults is presented. This concept uses time dependent voltage profiles from detailed system simulations for the supply of real safety critical components with the help of arbitrary waveform generators (AWG) and amplifiers. First results with this concept are shown with special attention on the robustness of communication during power supply faults.