The “EVALUATOR” Suite for the Computer-aided Analysis of Advanced Automotive Electrical

In the last years, the on-board electric power requirement in vehicles is continuously increasing. The increase in power demand is even due to emerging automotive technologies such as variable engine valve, active suspension, x-by-wire (e.g. steering-by-wire, brake-by-wire, etc.) and heated catalytic converter. Since the adaptability of the conventional electrical system to the needs of next future and present electrical loads is very little, alternative architectures of powernet are required, but it isn’t still clear how to detect the best architecture for a fixed automotive application. The goal of this paper is to introduce a new computer aided technique for the choice of new architectures oriented for advanced automotive applications. The paper presents the software suite EVALUATOR to compare different electrical power systems and to identify which of them has superior performances and is economically competitive.