Method and device for synthesising an electrical architecture

• US 7,441,225 B2
• Filed: 10/21/2003
• Issued: 10/21/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/21/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Renault Sas (Renault)
• Original Assignee: Renault Sas (Renault)
• Inventors: Dang Van Nhan, Christophe, Boutin, Samuel
• Primary Examiner(s): Do; Thuan
• Assistant Examiner(s): Doan; Nghia M
• Application Number:
  US10/532,105
• Publication Number:
  US 20060143587A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,827 Days
• Field of Search: 716 12- 15, 716/18, 703/1, 703/7, 703/8, 703/13, 703/14
• US Class Current: 716/106
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/18 Network design, e.g. design based on topological or interconnect aspects of utility systems, piping, heating ventilation air conditioning [HVAC] or cabling circuit design at the physical level G06F30/39; network planning tools for wireless communication networks H04W16/18
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination

Abstract

A method of synthesizing an electrical or electronic architecture of at least one part of a product including electrical wires and electrical and electronic components, such as sensors, actuators, and computing devices. In the method: the geometry of the product, which is divided into different zones, is represented two-dimensionally; routing points for the routing of the electrical wires are positioned in the different zones; connection points are positioned between the different zones; electrical and electronic components are positioned in the zones; a routing is synthesized according to the geometry of the different zones and the positions of the routing points, the connection points, and the components; the routing is assessed and, using the result of the assessment, the positions of the routing points, connection points, and/or electrical and electronic components are altered; and the synthesis and assessment are repeated.

Claims

1. A method for synthesizing a routing for an electrical and electronic architecture of at least one part of a product including electrical wires and electrical and electronic components, the method comprising:

representing a geometry of the product, divided into different zones, in two dimensions;

mapping routing points for routing of said electrical wires into the different zones, wherein each zone includes a plurality of said routing points;

mapping connecting points between the different zones, wherein each zone includes at least one of said connecting points;

mapping said electrical and electronic components into the different zones, wherein each zone includes a plurality of said electrical and electronic components;

undertaking a routing synthesis as a function of the geometry of the different zones and of the positions of the routing points, of the connecting points, and of the components;

undertaking an evaluation of the routing on a basis of quality and/or cost of said routing; and

depending on a result of the evaluation, modifying sites of the routing points, of the connecting points, and/or of the electrical and electronic components, and repeating the routing synthesis and evaluation.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein at least one connecting point corresponds, in the product, to one connector and/or at least one routing point corresponds, in the product, to one connector.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein, before the mapping electrical and electronic components, at least one of following choices is made:

choice of electronic control units,

choice of communication networks,

choice of sensors and actuators,

choice of fuse and relay boxes,

choice of an electrical and electronic architecture.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein, before undertaking the routing synthesis, characteristics are specified for the electrical and electronic components.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein, after synthesis of the routing, cabling composed of the synthesized routing and of connectors is visually displayed.

6. A method according to claim 1, further comprising validating one routing among those evaluated, and calculating a technical specification for cabling composed of the validated synthesized routing and of connectors, and calculating a cabling cost and/or calculating a measure of quality.

7. A method according to claim 1, wherein the product is a vehicle and the different zones of the vehicle contain at least one of the following zones:

a zone of a front face,

a zone of a hood,

a zone of an instrument panel,

a zone of a roof,

a zone of a trunk and tailgate, above and below the foregoing zones,

a zone of a right front fender and of a left front fender,

a zone of a right front door and of a left front door,

a zone of a right column and of a left column,

a zone of a right rear door and of a left rear door,

a zone of a right rear fender and of a left rear fender, between the zone of the instrument panel and those of the right front fender and of the left front fender, the zones of the right front column and of the left front column, between the zone of the trunk and those of the right rear fender and of the left rear fender, the zones of the right rear column and of the left rear column,

a zone above a floorboard, and

a zone below the floorboard.

8. A method according to claim 1, wherein, for each electronic component, data pins associated with drivers and data, power pins corresponding to a supply, and ground pins are specified, and routing of data wires originating from data pins to the electronic components are automatically synthesized.

9. A method according to claim 1, wherein, for an automatically generated cabling, the cabling is manually modified such that:

a) an end segment of routing points A and B is selected;

b) a new routing point C is added to the segment;

c) the new routing point C is associated with an existing routing point D via which a user preferentially wishes to make the cabling pass;

d) the initially selected segment is deleted and segments AD and DB are generated if they do not already exist, and the initial routing AB is replaced by the routing AD and DB; and

e) the automatically generated cabling is modified by iterating a)-d).

10. A method according to claim 9, wherein a subset of wires passing via the segment AB is selected in a).

11. A manufactured article comprising:

a computer storage means having a computer program for designing a specification of a hardware and software system,

the program comprises a code for execution of the method defined in claim 1.

12. A method according to claim 1, wherein said product is a vehicle, wherein said step of representing is performed by dividing said vehicles in different zones of said vehicles;

and wherein said electronic and electrical components include electronic control units, sensors, actuators, fuse boxes, relay boxes, and energy sources for said vehicle.

13. A method according to claim 12, further comprising defining prohibited subzones in each of said different zones, and said mapping of said routing points is performed such that said electrical wires are not routed through said prohibited subzones.

14. A method according to claim 13, wherein vertices of said prohibited subzones are routing points.

15. A method according to claim 13, further comprising validating a routing between a first routing or connecting point A and a second routing or connecting point B if said routing does not cross any prohibited subzone and if there does not exist a routing point C that can be reached without crossing a prohibited subzone and such that the lengths of segments AC and BC are shorted than the length of segment AB.

16. A method according to claim 15, further comprising enumerating all validated routings and selecting a shortest routing.

17. A method according to claim 1, wherein said undertaking of said evaluation of the routing is performed by evaluating a cost of said electrical and electronic architecture.

18. A device for synthesizing a wiring for an electrical and electronic architecture of at least one part of a product including electrical wires and electrical and electronic components, the device comprising:

means for representing, in two dimensions, a geometry of the product, divided into different zones;

means for mapping, into the different zones, routing points for routing of said electrical wires, wherein each zone includes a plurality of said routing points;

means for mapping connecting points between the different zones, wherein each zone includes at least one of said connecting points;

means for mapping said electrical and electronic components into the different zones, wherein each zone includes a plurality of said electrical and electronic components;

means for synthesizing a routing as a function of the geometry of the different zones and of the positions of the routing points, of the connecting points, and of the components;

means for evaluating the routing on a basis of quality and/or cost of said routing; and

means for modifying sites of the routing points, of connecting points, and/or of electrical and electronic components.

19. A device according to claim 18, wherein the two-dimensional representation of the zones onto which the components are mapped comprises a global view of all of the zones and means for adding or removing zones.

20. A device according to claim 19, wherein, when a zone is selected in the global view of all zones, a local view of the zone appears, in which local view geometric characteristics of the zone can be specified.

21. A device according to claim 20, wherein the local view of a zone is edited by clicking and dragging, by an icon of a tool, routing points, connecting points, prohibited subzones, and/or ground points.

22. A device according to claim 18, wherein a routing point or a connecting point between zones can be transformed to a connector by clicking on an attribute of the routing or connecting point.

23. A device according to claim 18, wherein siting of different electronic components is specified by clicking and dragging a representation of the components in a hierarchical list.

24. A device according to claim 18, wherein the routing of different electronic components is automatically synthesized.

25. A device according to claim 18, wherein, for each electronic component, data pins associated with drivers, themselves associated with data, power pins corresponding to a supply, and ground pins are specified, and the routing of wires corresponding to the wires to the electronic component control units are automatically synthesized.

26. A device according to claim 18, wherein, if an electronic component is connected to a calculator in a system architecture design tool, then, during synthesis of the routing, data pins of the electronic component are connected to the calculator.

27. A device according to claim 18, wherein a cost of an electrical and electronic architecture is calculated automatically as a function of at least one function or evaluation.

28. A device according to claim 27, wherein the function or evaluation comprises:

a cost function of the connectors, based on a nomogram that shows an estimate of the price of the connectors as a function of a number of data, power, and ground connections, or based on a mean price assigned to each connection of a data, current, or ground wire;

an evaluation of the cost of the electronic components;

or

a function of the cost of the wires based on their length and type, or taking a mean linear weight for power and ground wires, a mean linear weight for data wires, and a cost per unit mass of the component in which the wires are manufactured.

29. A device according to claim 18, wherein, given a mean cost for software and hardware drivers of different drivers and given a cost of implementation of an elementary operation, a cost of an electronic component of a complete electrical and electronic architecture is automatically estimated.

30. A device according to claim 18, wherein, given a synthesized routing and measures of quality for the connectors and portions of wire of different zones, a measure of quality of an electrical and electronic architecture is automatically estimated.

31. A device according to claim 18, wherein, given a measure of quality of the different electronic components mapped into the different zones, the quality of an electrical and electronic architecture is automatically estimated.

32. A device according to claim 18, wherein

given a measure of quality for each type of inputs/outputs and for each type of wire, and given a measure of quality for execution of an instruction on a calculator, for access to random-access memory and for access to flash memory,

a measure of quality for execution of an elementary operation and for execution of a set of elementary operations on a calculator is automatically calculated.

33. A device according to claim 18, wherein, in each zone, routing points that are candidates for grouping power and ground wires into splices are automatically determined, and that which minimizes the wire length in the zone is automatically chosen.

34. A device according to claim 33, wherein the splices are taken into account in cost and quality evaluations.

35. A device according to claim 18, providing a system representation tool, the system comprising:

electronic components, each connected to at least one bus, and the tool representing, for each bus, components that are connected directly to the bus and, for components directly connected to at least two buses, for each of the at least two buses, associated with the component, an identifier of each other bus to which the component is directly connected.

36. A device according to claim 18, further comprising:

means for manual modification of an automatically generated cabling, the means for manual modification of the cabling comprising;

a) means for inputting a selection of an end segment of routing points A and B;

b) means for adding a new routing point C to the segment;

c) means for associating the new routing point C with an existing routing point D via which a user preferentially wishes to make the cabling pass; and

d) means for deleting the initially selected segment and the segments AD and DB and for generating the routings AD and DB if they do not already exist, the initial routing AB being replaced by the routing AD and DB.