Real-Time ECU Access with SCALEXIO

In hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) tests, direct real-time access from the HIL simulator to the unit under test is necessary to be able to synchronously measure and adjust internal electronic control unit (ECU) variables. The dSPACE HIL simulator SCALEXIO does this by using either the serial dSPACE DCI-GSI2 hardware or an XCP-on-Ethernet interface that is already on the ECU. To access the variables in the ECU code, bypass service calls are needed as access points in the ECU code. These service calls can be inserted manually on the basis of the ECU source code, or automatically on the basis of binary code. For automatic insertion, dSPACE provides the ECU Interface Manager, a powerful and intuitive tool that lets test engineers make the necessary adjustments for ECU access whenever they need to. This gives users the ability to access the ECU under test conveniently from the real-time application. They can, for example, simulate values of inaccessible ECU sensors, such as the temperature, pressure or acceleration sensors, directly in the ECU without real stimulations that cost a lot of time and money. This way of access also lets them react to the internal states of the ECU software during a running test and thus specifically and immediately influence the progress of the test. Moreover, isolated tests of the ECU software’s subfeatures can be performed on the ECU hardware (white-box testing).