In-vehicle networks and ECU testing

Automotive Ethernet and other bus systems

Inside a typical car, you will find over 100 electronic control units (ECU) controlling everything from brakes, transmission, engine, A/C, steering, cameras, radar, acoustic sensors to the non-cellular and cellular wireless communications.

ECUs talk to each other via car buses, including controller area network (CAN), media oriented systems transport (MOST), local interconnect network (LIN) and FlexRay.

Automotive OEMs and Tier 1s are moving away from mixing so many different bus types to something more uniform, enabling higher data throughput, lower latency and less weight in order to reduce complexibility and increase cost-efficiency.

Features of Rohde & Schwarz automotive Ethernet testing solutions:

Trigger and decode capability for CAN, CAN-FD, LIN, FlexRay, CXPI, SENT, 100BASE-T1 and 1000BASE-T1
Compliance tests for automotive Ethernet (10BASE-T1S, 100BASE-T1, 1000BASE-T1, 2.5/5/10GBASE-T1 ) in accordance with standards such as 802.3cg, 802.3bw, 802.3bp, 802.3ch
Channel and Connector testing (100BASE-T1, 1000BASE-T1, 2.5/5/10GBASE-T1) according to OPEN Alliance TC9
EMI debugging, IVN signal & power integrity verification and analysis

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Automotive Ethernet and other bus systems solutions

Related resources for In-vehicle networks and ECU testing

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Our experts

Ralf Oestreicher

Modern vehicles typically have more than 100 electronic control units (ECUs), connected via various in-vehicle networks such as CAN, FlexRay, LIN, and Ethernet. These busses are used to exchange information and coordinate control. The higher volume of data generated by the rapid increase of sensors to support autonomous driving creates a demand for much higher data rate traffic within vehicles and today we have reached MultiGigabit Ethernet speeds. Of course, the data supports safety-critical functions so its integrity must be ensured. To verify the functionality of these data streams as well as the cables, domain controllers, ECUs and all parts of the in-vehicle networks, automotive engineers need to be able to search for specific signals, trigger, decode, measure crosstalk and perform standards compliance testing.

Dr. Ernst Flemming, Director of Product Management for oscilloscopes, Rohde & Schwarz

"Automotive Ethernet is now widely introduced in cars. In the OPEN Alliance, the industry has defined specific compliance tests. We offer a complete compliance test solution for 100BASE-T1 and 1000BASE-T1 that is widely accepted by OEMs, Tier 1s and test houses. With the new triggering and decoding solution for 100BASE-T1, automotive Ethernet can now be debugged the same way as the traditional CAN bus."