Multi-Sensor Configurable Platform for Automotive Applications

L. Serafini1,2, F. Carrai1,T. Ramacciotti2, V. Zolesi1

1
Kayser Italia Srl, via di Popogna, 501, 57128, Livorno, Italy, email: [email protected]
2
Dept. of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, Via Caruso, I-56122 Pisa, Italy

Abstract design and develop a configurable electronic platform

dedicated to particular applications. This paper presents a
This paper presents a configurable and generic
generic configurable platform able to acquire analog and
platform architecture suitable to interface several kinds of
digital signals from a set of sensors, perform data
sensors for automotive applications. A platform-based
processing, storage and transmission. The basic idea
design approach is pursued to reduce time-to-market. The
behind the considered platform is to reduce the
platform is essentially a library of hardware and software
development time and increase the system reliability by
reconfigurable resources. It is based on a microprocessor
using a rigorous methodology to design embedded
core plus a set of analog and digital peripherals
systems.
dedicated to signal acquisition, data processing, storage
and transmission. A particular instance of this platform
has been developed. The prototype electronic board 2 Platform Overview
produced is able to acquire temperature, humidity, Embedded products have become so complex and have
pressure and perform voltage/current measurements and developed so quickly that the current design
settings. The results achieved prove the validity of the methodologies are no longer adequate. To overcame these
proposed approach in terms of system performance and issues, a platform based design approach [1][3] can be
high reconfigurability of the generic platform. pursued. This methodology is based on design-reuse
approach [4], design flexibility and error prevention [1].
1 Introduction Once the architecture has been identified, a suitable
verification approach [5] allows fast debugging and gives
For an emerging class of automotive applications the
the platform additional quality degree. This phase is done
actual trend is to increase both safety and comfort levels
by inspections of all hierarchy levels of the platform. The
in modern automobiles. X-by-Wire, Assisted Guidance,
configurable platform architecture has been addressed to
Collision Avoidance and Cruising Control are typical
interface different kind of sensors for a wide range of
advanced facilities based on a continuously growing set of
automotive applications. The platform is essentially a
sensors distributed anywhere in the car. A common
library of HW/SW configurable resources. It is based on a
automotive electronic system gathers environmental data
microprocessor plus a set of analog/digital peripherals.
through a set of sensors, processes the data and eventually
The definition of the architecture has produced design
reacts through a set of actuators. Embedded systems are
standards and rules to connect together all HW/SW
very suitable for this type of application because they
platform components. The library can be expanded in the
allow the designers to implement complex and low-cost
future, new sensors and components can be integrated
system satisfying high level constraints and reducing
respecting the standards defined. The microprocessor
development times. Many commercial electronic
monitors system activity, commands the actuators and
platforms for embedded systems have been produced by
handles communication with external devices. Digital
electronic companies for general purpose applications.
modules perform the conditioning of the sensors, data
They offer design and development environments to
processing and safety functionalities. The reuse of the
support the project to all hierarchical levels and obtain an
platform is obtained guarantying high flexibility and
electronic system in a chip (SoC)[6][7]. The commercial
portability of the SW/HW components as much as
environments, such as mentioned, offer platform very
possible on different commercial programmable devices.
interesting but they present two types of disadvantages:
For a particular project a designer can derive a platform
they are not optimised for the particular field of
instance from the generic platform by choosing a set of
application, they don’t consider safety and reliability
components from the library and setting parameters of the
issues and they are expensive. There are good reasons to
configurable modules.
2.1 Generic Architecture basis of the sensors and chips selected. The system
The analog signal conditioning (front-end) has reduced monitors the status of sensors. The data from sensors are
as little as possible to perform most of the conditioning in acquired, processed, stored and then sent to Personal
the digital domain. Thus the analog section only consists Computer (PC) for data display (Figure 1).
of ADCs, DACs, amplifiers and voltage/current sources, Sensors FPGA
which are essential building blocks for automotive sensors Analog
(Digital
conditioning. All the other platform functions and Front-End
Actuators IP cores)
services are implemented through digital hardware and
software, keeping simple and reliable the analog section. Memories
The front-end can be designed and customized for uP
different classes of sensors by choosing the most suitable core PC
HW Platform
chips for the particular project. The digital peripherals of
the platform are configurable IP cores. Dependability Figure 1: Case study
modules, such as the watchdog and the reset controller, The board processor is a low-power and general
are present in the generic architecture in order to restore purpose microcontroller of the Silicon Laboratories, based
the initial condition when the software running on the on an 8051 core. The platform IP cores have been mapped
processor locks. All IP cores can operate with the in an Actel FPGA of ProAsic Plus family. The digital part
interrupt mechanism. The data acquired can be sent via has roughly a complexity of 18k gates. The clock
CAN bus (Controller Area Network) toward other devices frequency of microcontroller and FPGA is 20 MHz. A
thanks to a dedicated digital module for high speed serial mass memory of 4M bytes, a RAM memory of 24k bytes
link. For safety and reliability reasons the IP cores have and a serial flash of 8k bytes are provided in the board for
been designed using triple-voting and redundancy parameter configuration, data handling and collection.
techniques coding the digital state machines in safe mode.
A Register-Transfer-Level (RTL) description in VHDL 4 Conclusions
has been preferred in order to have the maximum control
on the final synthesized architecture. SW routines have In this paper a multi-sensor configurable platform for
been developed for each IP core in C/assembler. The high automotive applications has been presented. An outline of
level software is hardware-independent and it can manage platform architecture and its customisation for sensor data
each peripheral simply using the SW drivers developed. acquisition has been reported. A platform-based design
The platform architecture can be configured by means of approach has been adopted to give additional quality
SW/HW parameters. System parameters determine the degree and to reduce development time. The results
structure of the platform at high level while specific achieved prove the validity of the proposed approach in
parameters establish the functionality of single HW/SW terms of system performance and high reconfigurability of
components. Address of internal registers, size of IP the generic platform architecture.
modules, number of generic digital components and bus 5 References
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