ZF TRW has bagged two business contracts with North American and European vehicle manufacturers for second generation Safety Domain ECU (SDE 2), whose central controller is set for launch in 2018.
The SDE, which performs the role of central integration hub, is capable of drawing millions of bytes of data from environmental sensors of the vehicle's state and surroundings.
With this, the steering, braking and drivetrain systems could be integrated and a multitude of functions could be pressed into action, cutting down on the number of control units and optimizing electronic architecture.
ZF TRW active safety engineering and automated driving director Dr Hans-Gerd Krekels said: "Data processing is at the core of automated driving and as vehicles feature more automated functions, increasing amounts of information about the vehicle's surroundings need to be evaluated within fractions of a second. This requires a high performance control unit.
"Our SDE system holds major strategic importance as we embark on the journey toward automated driving. Over the last two years, demand has risen quickly in the premium segment but we expect that by 2020, the technology will also enter the mass volume vehicle market segment."
Besides, the central control unit is also capable of incorporating more data from vehicle dynamics arbitration systems and sensors, such as radar and camera, to foster a 360-environmental sensing.
Image: ZF TRW's Safety Domain Electronic Control Unit. Photo: courtesy of PRNewswire.
