Tools for integrating diagnosis in the design process An application to the Common Rail air and fuel delivery systems

The development of diagnostic software is very critical in current generation automotive systems. However, the activities related to diagnosis (e.g., FMEA generation, analysis of diagnosability, generation of software to be embedded in the ECU) are usually not supported by specialized tools and, as a consequence, not strictly integrated with other design phases (e.g., design of control and definition of control strategies and software). In this paper we discuss how the design process can be re-organized including the activities above by using a set of tools which support the activities themselves. The work originated from the IDD project, which was started in 2000 with the goals of bringing diagnostic related activities to the core of the design process, by providing designers with a set of tools to perform these activities. After sketching the reengineered design process, we present the implemented tools and we briefly comment on the application to the common rail air and fuel delivery system.