Fundamentals of Instrumentation and Measurement

Chapter 7¹

The Contribution of Microtechnologies

7.1 Introduction

7.1.1 The vehicle: a system of complex, interdependent parts

Optimizing the performances and respecting qualitative and quantitative rules of a complex system comprising a vehicle, its drivers and its passengers means acquiring and exploiting a large amount of dedicated data. These include the following:

- data having to do with passive security features, such as airbags, seatbelts with pretensioners, de-mistifiers, door closing indicators, levels, and quality of wheel-toground contact;

- data having to do with active security, including automatic driving and monitoring, anti-collision radar, ABS, and turning adjustment;

- passenger comfort data, such as temperature control, hygrometric degree and air quality;

- data relevant for control and transmission, including parametrization by cartography, electronic steering and steering wheel functions, servo-control of oil and water temperatures, and anti-pollution devices.

In this sense, these shared acquisition and analysis structures are superior to equivalent centralized systems in at least three ways:

- in terms of reliability, because of redundancy and reduction of connective wiring;

- response time;

- flexibility.

These shared structures are based on data capturing, carried out as closely as possible to their source, accompanied by a local conditioning and pre-analysis. The goal of these operations is to make a quick decision, most often of the reflexive kind. The ...