Due to the growing interest in problems such as global warming and energy constraints, automobile manufacturers are being called upon to make greater improvements in fuel efficiency than ever before and to reduce the transportation sector's dependence on oil in order to achieve a low-carbon society. Thus, they are introducing Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) that are powered by electric motors. The industry trend globally is toward the development of next-generation vehicles known as smart cars, which will be made highly intelligent by integrating new information and communication technologies into the vehicles.
Using wireless communication to connect smart cars to a mobile society
New models of EVs, PHEVs and conventional types of vehicles that up until now have been operationally independent of other traffic are predicted to soon be mutually interlinked to Intelligent Transport System (ITS) infrastructures. They will be plugged into Long Term Evolution (LTE) links and other forms of wireless high-speed data communication. Such connectivity measures will enable individual cars and trucks to communicate back and forth with other smart vehicles, elements of roadway infrastructures and smart communities (see Figure 1).
Producing smart cars requires overcoming many challenges
In many countries around the world, initiatives have been launched to curb emissions of CO2 and other combustion gas products to the greatest extent possible, as well as to cut the amount of energy the transportation sector consumes to help protect the earth's environment. As a direct result, automakers are pushing hard to achieve new levels of energy savings and weight reductions for the vehicles they produce.
For example, although making in-vehicle equipment electronic is a major method for obtaining zero emissions, solutions have to be found to address vital EV and PHEV issues such as ensuring the safety of the batteries and high-voltage power supply systems. Importantly, other successful initiatives must be undertaken to reduce the amount of energy these types of vehicles consume in order to extend the distances they can travel on battery power. Accomplishing these tasks requires improving the efficiency of the electronic controls and circuits and reducing the size and weight of the vehicle's parts and materials. Beyond that, measures are needed to support safe driving, curtail traffic congestion and cut travel delays by improving the way the overall transportation system and its infrastructure work.
Optimized approaches to integrating information and communication technology and computerized control technology are being developed and applied so that smart cars can achieve their full potential as a top-tier 'green' method of transportation. Many vehicle design challenges are specifically related to the requisite on-board electronics. The main issues involve incorporating battery charge- and discharge-control technology, power management technology, authentication technology, motor and solenoid control technology, high-voltage motor drive methods, intelligent actuators, image recognition, road-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-vehicle communication technology, cloud technology, and more.
Our solution for Smart Car
Currently, the electronics systems related to areas like power supplies, power storage, drive power conversion, and security are often cited as being crucial for the commercialization of EVs and PHEVs. Customers have told Renesas that they are particularly interested in technologies for addressing engineering issues such as boosting the efficiency of voltage converters, improving the quality of the electrical power delivered to various systems, detecting points of high-voltage leakage, and providing better charge and discharge methods that protect and extend the life of battery packs. Automobile manufacturers are also seeking solutions for improving motor drives and regenerative control, providing efficient and precise control for electric actuators, enforcing equipment authentication, and protecting the security of stored and transmitted information.
Asked to comment on these and other automotive-specific technology issues, Mr. Kikuo Muramatsu, Associate General Manager, Automotive Systems Division of Renesas Electronics Corporation, said, “The automobile industry continues to strive hard to further reduce the size and weight of their products and to improve the efficiency of the parts and materials with which they will build next-generation vehicles. We expect that advanced cloud computing technology implemented through the use of LTE and the like will be required, as well. Security technology will be necessary, too, in order to ensure the reliability and safety of the information that is passed back and forth via high-speed data communication links.
“We have an advantage in serving automotive industry customers because we can provide total solutions. Renesas produces huge volumes of high-quality ICs and discrete devices, including microcomputers, analog semiconductors, power semiconductors, authentication ICs (secure microcomputers), and many other products and support tools.
Offering automotive engineers diverse solutions for tomorrow’s smart cars
Primary among Renesas' electronic solutions for smart cars are the semiconductor devices listed in Figure 2. These products are also briefly described in the sections that follow.
Power devices
Improvements in the efficiency of high-voltage drive motors can be achieved by utilizing our Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBTs). These robust devices, as well as our power MOSFETs, can perform highly efficient voltage conversion. They are ideal for the power control circuits that carry out vehicle processes such as AC/DC conversion and DC voltage-level increases and decreases. We offer excellent design choices for Power Factor Correction (PFC) circuits, too; they can boost the quality of the onboard electrical power by suppressing harmonics (noise) in power lines. Additionally, our chips for leakage detection circuits increase automobile safety by helping to prevent accidents on the high-voltage lines in smart cars.
Battery management and Secure devices
Circuit designs incorporating an Analog Front End (AFE) and microcomputers can manage the voltage, electrical current, and temperature of battery cells to shorten the charging time; they can also improve the safety of storing a large amount of electrical energy storage in a vehicle. Additionally, if a Renesas security IC is used to authenticate the vehicle and its battery pack, that authentication will facilitate charging at Power Line Carrier (PLC) stations by allowing the transmission of the electricity usage data needed for billing the cost of 'refueling' an EV.
Motor & generator control microcomputers
Dedicated Renesas motor control microcomputers containing integral hardware algorithm processors can achieve better motor control while also helping to decrease power consumption. Furthermore, microcomputers that integrate interfaces for speed and phase sensors can deliver more precise control functions and provide enhanced safety features. Renesas chips make it feasible to expand an electric motor's drive torque bandwidth and reduce its size and weight.
Vehicle control microcomputers
When vehicle control microcomputers are connected over a network, subsystems built with Renesas devices can share data on all of the functions in a vehicle, from motor control to information control. Furthermore, a constant connection to a cloud environment, such as the capability being enabled by wireless formats such as LTE and others, means that smart cars will be able to exchange information with similar vehicles instantaneously using Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments (WAVE) technology.
Image-recognition devices
The incorporation of image-recognition devices into cameras and radar transceivers makes possible a number of valuable standard and optional smart car features. Examples include pedestrian-recognition capabilities, functions that assist nighttime driving, lane departure alerts, and warnings about vehicles ahead that have slowed or stopped. All of these functions help promote safer driving for fewer accidents and they can be implemented with advanced semiconductor solutions from Renesas. In the future, driving will become more eco-friendly with less frustration and delay and fewer accidents if traffic, weather, detour and various types of community information are spotted by the electronic 'eyes' in a vehicle, quickly analyzed by on-board systems, and then relayed automatically to other drivers in intelligent cars and trucks in the same vicinity. This is another powerful and highly beneficial feature that our products can make possible.
Sound generator for Automotive
Connections between the onboard network to digital amplifiers through a Renesas microcomputer with a built-in Sound generator ROM enable the creation of an audio microcomputer system. This, in turn, allows the transmission of driving information from an EV in real time. This capability can be used to cause the vehicle to automatically give off 'imitation engine sounds' that alert pedestrians to the fact that an otherwise silent vehicle is approaching, so people will be less likely to accidentally step into the EV's path.
Providing total solutions that allow smart cars to run better and longer
As the above list of solutions and applications demonstrates, Renesas is a major electronics-technology driving force for a key global industry in which 'driving' is of primary importance. By providing total system solutions that harness our massive corporate strengths in areas such as power control, high-speed wireless communication, and security, we are helping customers in the automotive industry to overcome many of the challenges they face in their efforts to successfully commercialize and sell new generations of smart cars. By doing so, we continue to contribute in this very dynamic worldwide marketplace to the realization of next-generation vehicles and transportation systems that are low-carbon, safe, and comfortable.
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