Customer: A major car manufacturer
Area: Automotive industry / R&D
Requirements: Function and quality testing of sensors
Implementation: Software: LabVIEW

The future is called drive-by-wire

Braking without hydraulics, only a cable? Steering without a steering shaft? Drive-by-wire, the idea of operating vehicles not with mechanical components but rather with electrical transmission, was still a fiction just a few years ago, but today it is a standard procedure in automobile development.

The core of the drive-by-wire technology is a sophisticated, absolutely reliable sensor system that captures the movement of the respective control element and outputs signals that can be evaluated electrically. measX has developed special testing software for testing the function and quality of these sensors.

The sensor values are subjected to strict limit value monitoring during the test. For example, the ratio of an angle to the output signal is recorded, and the transmission characteristic curve is checked with regard to position, form, linearity and hysteresis by means of freely definable index points. Other test procedures alter the supply voltage over wide ranges – including negative – and monitor the responses of the sensors in terms of output voltage and power consumption.

On sensors with PWM output, it is also possible to determine the frequency, jitter and edge steepness. The recorded or calculated data is displayed or saved in the user software. At the end of a test sequence, a report file is automatically generated as a PDF. Characteristic curves are also stored along with raw data files so that they can be reloaded and compared later.

The software was designed such that users can define their own test procedures, which can be executed automatically. A large number of test steps are available for this and can be individually customized via parameterization.

Image: INFINITI

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