A New Test System for the Simulation-Based Emulation of Highly Dynamic Power Supply Faults

Many future vehicles will be characterized by automated driving features which demand an outstanding reliability of safety critical components. To ensure the needed safety in operation of the systems, the power supply system must support a fail-operational function. Typical component tests regarding the supply system are simplified and cannot consider the propagation of voltage pulses or drops along the power supply system and faulty system interactions. This paper proposes a new testing approach. The propagation of power supply system faults in a supply network is simulated first, and the time dependent voltage profiles are calculated for each attached component individually. In a second step the voltage profiles gained from simulations are fed by a highly dynamic voltage source to the components and possible interactions are analyzed in this special setup. The new test method is presented and analyzed. In an exemplary automotive system two redundant electronic components are interacting via a CAN interface. It is shown how highly dynamic power supply system faults can lead to unexpected system interactions. The need for better testing methods is confirmed.