Fail-safe ECU System Using Dynamic Reconfiguration of FPGA

ECUs ( Electronic Control Units ) are embedded controllers in automobiles. The number of ECUs in each automobile is increasing and their functions are becoming more complex in order to meet environmental requirements and satisfy market needs. It is important to make these ECUs reliable for the sake of customer safety. Since space and cost reduction are high priorities for automobile applications, there is a demand for improved circuit reliability with the minimum amount of hardware addition. This paper presents a fail-safe ECU system using dynamically reconfigurable FPGA ( Field Programmable Gate Array). The FPGA is configured to be fault detectors and functions as a monitor for the control circuits under normal operating conditions. If a fault in one ECU is detected, the FPGA is dynamically reconfigured to be a backup circuit for the faulty control circuit. Because of this dynamic reconfiguration it is possible for the proposed fail-safe ECU system to be small, compared with conventional hardware. Example fail-safe circuits using dynamically reconfigurable FPGA, such as the Xilinx 6200 series, have been designed and evaluated.