Development of an FPGA based ECU for a petrol engine

Abstract

All modern automotive engines feature a device known as an Engine Control Unit (ECU), which is used to control emissions, performance, and efficiency. An ECU works by having several different sensors within an engine that continuously monitor some parameters and using this information it processes it to control certain variables such as amount of fuel sent into an engine and when to ignite it. Many automotive companies strive to make an ECU that brings out the most potential from an engine. Some of these ECUs feature various engine mappings, so that one could switch from an “economy mode” into a “sport mode” where an engine shifts its behaviour from being fuel efficient to a more powerful mode. Certain functions can only be implemented with the use of an ECU, such as Volkswagen’s Active Cylinder Technology (ACT) where while under low load, an engine can cut the fuel supply to some of the cylinders to save fuel. These functions help higher performance engines to survive in a world where emissions and fuel economy are of high priority, providing a very good balance between engine performance, emissions, and fuel economy. This project shall contain both the hardware design of an ECU on a Genesys Virtex 5 FPGA along with a sensor interfacing circuit. Programming will be done in VHDL and will be used to process the information received from sensors and outputting the signals to the engine components. The sensor interfacing circuit built was to properly interface the signals to the various sensors as well as protect the board. The TLP250 optocoupler was especially used to isolate and protect the FPGA from voltages as well as drive higher voltage components.