Topology and Design Optimization of a 14 V Automotive Power Net Using a Modified Discrete PSO in a Physical Simulation

In the last years, hydraulic powered chassis control systems have been replaced by electrical systems due to efficiency reasons. Additionally, more and more comfort electronics have been integrated. These circumstances have lead to a high power demand in today's automotive power nets. For this reason, voltage stability has become an important design criterion of the power net. This paper describes a simulation based method to optimize the power net topology and the dimensioning of components with regard to voltage stability requirements. A Modified Discrete Particle Swarm Optimization is used in combination with a physical power net simulation. In order to optimize the topology itself, a tool flow for an automated change of the simulation model is presented. To achieve best possible performance, the influence of the configuration parameters on the algorithm performance is evaluated and appropriate parameters are chosen for the given problem. Finally, exemplary optimization results are shown by pointing out optimal topologies for different constraints of the minimum terminal voltage.