ECU FOR H2 POWERTRAIN

The partnership with the most important OEMs and the University of Bologna allows Alma-Automotive to look forward into the future through its fully programmable ECU SPARK applied in innovative fuel systems. Thanks to a wide I/O interface and SW flexibility, together with our partners, we implemented the SPARK into an engine test bench dedicated to development phases.

The SPARK is a fully programmable control prototyping system based on sbRIO-9651. The Xilinx Zynq™, with its Dual Core ARM® Processor, Artix-7 FPGA on top and 512MB RAM, provides outstanding flexibility, efficiency and accuracy, enabling complex control algorithms and signal processing to be performed. NI solution expanded with our in-house designed hardware result in a system capable to meet the needs of any standard, motorsport and development application.

SPARK’s power stage is able to command the most common high and low pressure injectors (gasoline, diesel, H2, gas) and coils (active or passive) with a full programmatical and flexible SW approach.

Injectors' parameters are calculated in open loop chain or in closed loop system, using the two available lambda UEGO channels, to increase precision on test.

To minimize time consuming, maximize precision of test results and decrease costs, we customized the SPARK software to directly implement the engine control and thanks to the internal ADC at 200 kS/s, we integrated the combustion analysis software (Alma-Automotive On Board Indicating) for 2 cylinders engines. In this configuration, the ECU could control the engine with real-time feedback on last cycle combustion without any external combustion analysis device.

CAN, RS232 and TTL protocol allows every user to easy integrate SPARK in research & development laboratories, test benches or on-board application as a primary or secondary unit, based on customer need.

Alma Automotive gives to its costumers the possibility to autonomously implement software strategies or rely on the experience of internal engineers, with competence in software development and engine testing activities with both traditional and innovative fuel applications.