Toward Smart Vehicular dc Networks in the Automotive Industry: Process, computational tools, and trends in the design and simulation of vehicle electrical distribution systems

Process, computational tools, and trends in the design and simulation of vehicle electrical distribution systems. The automotive industry is experiencing unprecedented requirements to fulfill higher expectations from customers and include new functionalities in vehicles, such as driving assistance, gadget connectivity, sharing capabilities, and electrified traction. The electrical network is currently one of the most challenging onboard systems to be designed and prototyped because these demands add to its intrinsic complexity. A single vehicle contains tens of electronic control units (ECUs), hundreds of power consumers, and more than a thousand wires having an aggregate length of more than 3 km and a weight of more than 50 kg. As a consequence, there may be up to 10¹⁰ possible wiring architectures, which requires a great logistics effort to integrate, disperse, and store data from manufacturers and suppliers. The development of software platforms must suitably visualize, analyze, and simulate these intricate vehicular electrical networks in multiple possible configurations and scenarios.