Electronics in Automotive Engineering: A Top–Down Approach for Implementing Industrial Fieldbus Technologies in City Buses and Coaches

The electrical circuits and their electronic control units in city buses and coaches are essential for good performance. Drive, braking, suspension, door opening, security, and communication devices must be integrated in a reliable and real-time information system. The industrial communication networks or fieldbuses are a good solution to implement networked control systems for the onboard electronics in the public transport buses and coaches. Also, this trend of automotive electronics is being encouraged in the current European Union Framework Program (FP) (seventh FP), which is devoted to intelligent transportation systems, for facing the world's new challenges in environmental care and efficient fuel consumption among others. The authors are working in the design of multiplexed solutions based on fieldbuses to integrate the body and chassis functions of city public transport buses. An example for the EURO5 model of the Scania manufacturer is reported in this paper.