The Role of Sensors in Future Automotive Applications

Several electronic control systems will be introduced into our cars in the near future, thus leading to an increasing demand for new and more sophysticated sensors. The sensor structure could be drastically changed because more and more functions will be required to the central microprocessors of the electronic control units, causing their overload. Taking into account that a considerable amount of microprocessor time and memory is spent for the collection and the elaboration of sensors signal, it makes sens to relieve them displacing a part of the electronics onto the sensors thus obtaining upgraded and easily usable signals. This process will lead at first to integrated sensors and later to smart and eventually microprocessor based sensors. In the paper an attempt will be given to forsee how the systems structure, the sensors configuration and the relevant implementation technologies should evolve to fulfil the future requirements of car electronics.