Load balancing issues in automotives

Electronic Control Units (ECUs) are widely used to improve the comfort and reliability of vehicles. It has become the fundamental building block of any automotive subsystem and is interfaced with electro mechanics counterpart. To meet the system wide requirements, these ECUs are interconnected using the communication infrastructure. Although the communication infrastructure in terms of, predominantly, the CAN based vehicle network took its birth to enable ECUs to work in a coordinated manner in order to support system wide requirements, during the past decade, this infrastructure was also viewed as a potential means to incorporate extensibility in terms of addition of newer ECUs which are built for implementing additional requirements. With this paradigm, the number of ECUs started growing in a steep manner, uncontrolled and as a result, today, it is not hard to see a high segment automotive housing ECUs as large as 75–80. Hence, load balancing mechanisms are needed to ease ECU integration and for efficient utilization of CPU power in ECUs. In this paper, we explain the concept of load balancing on the basis of CPU utilization across ECUs

Load Balancing in Multi ECU Configuration

Electronic Control Units (ECUs) are widely used to improve the comfort and reliability of vehicles. It has become the fundamental building block of any automotive subsystem and is interfaced with electro mechanics counterpart. To meet the system wide requirements, these ECUs are interconnected using the communication infrastructure. Although the communication infrastructure in terms of, predominantly, the CAN based vehicle network took its birth to enable ECUs to work in a coordinated manner in order to support system wide requirements, during the past decade, this infrastructure was also viewed as a potential means to incorporate extensibility in terms of addition of newer ECUs which are built for implementing additional requirements. With this paradigm, the number of ECUs started growing in a steep manner, uncontrolled and as a result, today, it is not hard to see a high segment automotive housing ECUs as large as 75-80. Hence, load balancing mechanisms are needed to ease ECU integration and for efficient utilization of CPU power in ECUs. In this paper, we explain the mathematical approach for load balancing across ECUs on the basis of CPU utilization

Load Balancing towards ECU Integration

There has been an exponential increase in the number of electronic components embedded in vehicles. Development processes, techniques and tools have changed to accommodate that evaluation. A wide range of electronic functions such as navigation, adaptive control, infotainment, traffic information, safety system etc are implemented in today’s vehicles. Many of the new functions are not stand alone and hence they need to exchange information, sometimes with stringent time constraints for time critical functions such as engine management, collision warning systems etc. The complexity of the embedded architecture in a vehicle is continually increasing. Today up to 2500 signals are exchanged through up to 70 Electronic Control Units (ECUs) using 5 different buses. This paper introduces the load balancing approach across ECUs supplied by various Tier1 suppliers

Deploying Health Monitoring ECU Towards Enhancing the Performance of In-Vehicle Network

Electronic Control Units (ECUs) are the fundamental electronic building blocks of any automotive system. They are multi-purpose, multi-chip and multicore computer systems where more functionality is delivered in software rather than hardware. ECUs are valuable assets for the vehicles as critical time bounded messages are communicated through. Looking into the safety criticality, already developed mission critical systems such as ABS, ESP etc, rely fully on electronic components leading to increasing requirements of more reliable and dependable electronic systems in vehicles. Hence it is inevitable to maintain and monitor the health of an ECU which will enable the ECUs to be followed, assessed and improved throughout their life-cycle starting from their inception into the vehicle. In this paper, we propose a Health monitoring ECU that enables the early trouble shooting and servicing of the vehicle prior to any catastrophic failure.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, FCST 201

Stereo Acoustic Perception based on Real Time Video Acquisition for Navigational Assistance

A smart navigation system (an Electronic Travel Aid) based on an object detection mechanism has been designed to detect the presence of obstacles that immediately impede the path, by means of real time video processing. The algorithm can be used for any general purpose navigational aid. This paper is discussed, keeping in mind the navigation of the visually impaired, and is not limited to the same. A video camera feeds images of the surroundings to a Da- Vinci Digital Media Processor, DM642, which works on the video, frame by frame. The processor carries out image processing techniques whose result contains information about the object in terms of image pixels. The algorithm aims to select the object which, among all others, poses maximum threat to the navigation. A database containing a total of three sounds is constructed. Hence, each image translates to a beep, where every beep informs the navigator of the obstacles directly in front of him. This paper implements an algorithm that is more efficient as compared to its predecessors.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, 1 table, SIPM-2012, pp. 97-108, 2012; http://airccj.org/CSCP/vol2/csit2311.pd

Implementation of GPS System using Blackfin Processor BF527

ABSTRACT In today's world, human beings want to stay connected with each other and their surroundings. Global Positioning System (GPS) is one of the technologies which is used to determine the exact position of various objects. It is more widely used for military purposes. Various equipments like GPS are increasingly driven by embedded processors, also entering the picture are embedded design needs that include securing intellectual property, lowering power dissipation, minimizing cost, and cutting development time. Blackfin is one such type of processors. In this paper we implement GPS system using BF527. The Software implementation is done using VDK++

Protein kinases orchestrate cell cycle regulators in differentiating BeWo choriocarcinoma cells

Abstract Choriocarcinoma, a trophoblastic neoplasia, occurs in women as an incidence of abnormal pregnancy. BeWo choriocarcinoma cells derived from the abnormal placentation are a suitable model system to study the factors associated with differentiation, invasion and other cellular events as an alternative to clinical samples. Many protein kinases orchestrate the complex events of cell cycle and in case of malignancy such regulators are found to be mutated. In the present study, BeWo cells treated with forskolin (Fo) and phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) were used to study the role of PKA (protein kinase A) and PKC (protein kinase C), respectively, on the expression pattern of differentiation-related genes, membrane markers, PKC isoforms and cell cycle regulators. The effect of Fo and PMA on the cell proliferation was assessed. Progressive induction of alkaline phosphatase level and formation of multinucleated differentiated cells were observed in the cells treated with Fo. Exposure of cells to Fo and PMA induced the mRNA transcripts of α-hCG, β-hCG and endoglin and down-regulates E-cadherin at mRNA and protein levels. Synergistic levels of both up- and down-regulated genes/proteins were observed when cells were treated with the combination of Fo and PMA. The mRNA levels of cyclin D1, cyclin E1, p21, Rb, p53, caspase-3 and caspase-8 decreased gradually during differentiation. Fo significantly inhibited the protein levels of PCNA, Rb, PKC-α and PMA stimulated mRNA expression of PKC-ε and PKC-δ. Further, failure in the activation of essential components of the cell cycle machinery caused G2/M phase arrest in differentiating BeWo cells

<b>Cultivation prospects of German chamomile in South India</b>

135-137German chamomile, Matricaria chamomilla Linn. is used both in traditional and modern systems of medicines. It is an ingredient of several traditional Unani and Homoeopathic medicinal preparations. Blue oil extracted from dry capitula is highly valued in international trade. It is an introduced crop in India and mainly cultivated in Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and Assam. It is a crop of 4-6 months mainly propagated by seeds either by transplanting or by direct sowing. It is also being grown in South India on experimental basis. In northern dry zone of Karnataka under Ghataprabha river command area, it recorded fresh flower yield of 6.35 tonnes/ha and dry flower yield of 1.88 tonnes/ha with the spacing of 30 × 20cm. The crop seems to be very hardy as there are no pests and diseases recorded in this crop during the crop growth. However, aphids are seen but not serious to reduce the crop yield significantly. The trials are underway to study the effect of different dates of planting on growth, yield and quality of chamomile under this situation. In the present paper cultivation prospects of this medicinal and aromatic crop has been discussed for encouraging commercial cultivation in South Indian region