Complexity Science Doctoral Training Centre Mini Project
APPLICATION OF COMPLEXITY SCIENCE TO THE VALIDATION OF
AUTOMOTIVE ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS OF SYSTEMS
Dr Peter Jones
Reader, School of Engineering
Ross McMurran
Project Manager – IARC Electrical
Projects, WMG
5th January 2009
We are currently leading a collaborative research project between Jaguar and Land
Rover, QinetiQ, Add2 and the University of Warwick that is addressing issues
concerning the validation of complex electronic systems of systems in premium
automobiles. The project has an 5 year duration and is valued at £11M, of which
£4.5M is provided by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) via the Validation of
Complex Systems initiative, under its Technology Programme.
Current in-car electronic systems of systems in premium vehicles are diverse and
include: systems that control the engine, transmission, suspension and handling of a
vehicle; air bag and other advanced restraint systems; comfort systems; entertainment
systems; security systems; and telematic systems. Such wide ranging functionality is
enabled by networks of up to 50, or more, electronic control units (ECU’s) that are
distributed throughout a vehicle. Individual ECU’s host software that is required to
interact with sensors, actuators and other ECU’s, within time constraints. The ECU’s
are linked by a communications network, consisting of several data bus technologies.
The design, implementation and management of such complex distributed systems,
and their integration into one cohesive and reliable whole is presenting new
challenges for the automotive industry.
To facilitate the work being conducted at the University, Jaguar and Land Rover
has donated a LabCar; a facility that provides a physical mock up of a complete invehicle electronic system of systems, in this case that of a Jaguar XK vehicle. The
LabCar enables fault conditions to be inserted into the in-vehicle electronic system of
systems and its response to the faults to be observed by monitoring data flowing
through the data buses. To date, conventional methods of data analysis have been
used to interpret the results of our experiments, including model based and case based
reasoning methods.
The aim of the research mini project is to explore the potential for application of
mathematically based, complexity science techniques in the validation of automotive
electronic systems of systems. The mini project would involve: gaining an
appreciation of the electronic systems architecture in a premium automobile, possibly
through abstract architectural modelling; designing and conducting experiments with
the LabCar facility; and applying mathematically based techniques to the analysis of
the experimental results. There are excellent prospects for the mini project to lead
into a full PhD project. Also, the results of the mini project will be fed to our
industrial partners via our TSB funded collaborative project.
Complexity Science students, and staff, are welcome to view the LabCar and, if
interested, should send an e-mail to Peter.Jones@warwick.ac.uk.