Fail-Operational Power Networks

For the operation of electrical components in the vehicle, a reliable power supply is of high relevance. In particular for future developments and trends, the guarantee of supply and the associated reliability of components - also and in particular of safety-related functions - are increasingly becoming a technical and economic challenge.

For highly automated driving functions and all safety-relevant components, a minimum of redundancy in the energy supply is unavoidable. However, classical redundancies usually have a disadvantageous effect on the objectives of efficiency and costs.

The development of today's energy networks towards a fail-operational designed energy system is therefore an essential topic that, in our view, is indispensable as a further development of fault-tolerant on-board systems and which we - also with regard to our system developments - address by means of processes, components and methods. Hereby Fail-Operational means that such electrical systems can maintain the necessary reliability in a sufficient degree even in fault conditions.

Therefore, we continuously and interdisciplinary work on an optimization of the structures and the functions of the energy power network and its components, also with significant in-house developments and concepts, which are forming essential building blocks of a fail-operational power network.