Development of Software Installed in ECU for Vehicle Control

摘要

The vehicle had been composed of the machine overall before 1970's when the exhaust gas regulations of the vehicle was applied. However, the vehicle doesn't move without the electrical instrument now. ECU (Electronic Control Unit) calculates the best amount of gasoline according to the state of driving of the engine, and ignites the engine with the spark plug in the best timing. The vehicle has suited articles of the regulations that become severe every year by executing such a precise control. 30 years have already passed by beginning to use ECU that the vehicle controls with the microcomputer. ECU is used in various fields of the vehicle. Therefore, the amount of ECU installed in the vehicle increases remarkably. We explain by the amount of the microcomputer used for the vehicle. The number of microcomputers increases gradually, and one vehicle is using 70 microcomputers or more now. Moreover, the scale of the software installed in the ECU increases rapidly, too (Fig. 1). The scale of software increases 24 times between 1990 and 2005. We explain the development of the software for ECU, and think about the ideal way of the development in the future.