AUTOMOTIVE ELECTRONICS

By-Wire Cars
Turn the Corner
Replacing a car’s hydraulic systems
BY ELIZABETH A. BRETZ with wires, microcontrollers,
Senior Associate Editor
and computers promises better
safety and handling—but will

P
icture this: you’re driving down the
highway on a gray and rainy day when
drivers buy it?
you hit a puddle and start to skid, veer-
ing into the adjacent lane. Automatically, the brakes
on each wheel adjust to stabilize the car as you
and the car steer in the direction of the skid. Dampers and roll
sensors feed information back to a computer that returns opti-
mum damping levels for the car’s suspension, helping to sta-
bilize the car and keep the wheels firmly on the pavement.
Better fuel economy, too, can be attributed in
part to the car’s by-wire electronics, specifically
throttle-by-wire. An electronically controlled
throttle can maintain optimal airflows for all
driving conditions. One controlled by your foot
on the accelerator, however, doesn’t deliver the
same performance.
Carmakers, according to Joe Ziomek of JFZ & Associates, an
automotive consulting firm in Islamorada, Fla., see reductions in
the number of traffic fatalities and injuries with the use of by-wire
systems. Industry experts believe such systems may prevent up
to 30 percent of traffic fatalities, the same percentage as airbags.
Someday, by-wire systems will automatically steer the car
and reduce its speed from 80 km/h to 40 km/h to 0 km/h
without specific action on the driver’s part. Instead, input will
come from a built-in positioning system, road-condition sen-
• April 2001
whatever is being controlled with the intention of making the
driver or the car’s performance better, not [taking complete con-
trol of the car from] the driver.”
The basic concept of by-wire sounds simple enough: replace
the car’s mechanically linked hydraulic systems—steering and
braking, for example—with electronic ones. By-wire systems
began to be installed well over a decade ago, first in mili-
tary and then in commercial aircraft.
In a “true” by-wire system, there would be no
hydraulic backup to the electronic system; therein
lies a cause for carmakers’ concern. Drivers count on
the fact that the brakes and steering work when and
how they are supposed to, thanks to hydraulic systems. Car-
makers just don’t know how drivers will react to the wires,
computers, and microcontrollers. They see drivers asking
“Will I need to reboot my brakes instead of adding brake
fluid?” and walking away from by-wire cars.
Another basic hurdle automakers face is that no industry-
wide standard exists for a by-wire system. There is no set spec-
ification for the electronic control of a safety-critical system like
braking or steering. While automakers agree that having such
a standard will help both in winning public confidence in by-

sors, and nearby cars to determine the safest path for vehicles wire systems and in designing and implementing such sys-
likely to collide. The necessary calculations will be made by tems, they have yet to agree on one. What’s more, this standard
powerful on-board computers. But that is a decade or more needs to work for all safety-critical functions under the by-wire
IEEE SPECTRUM

away and requires more computing and control than by-wire
systems are initially expected to have.
“Fundamentally, though,” said Brian Murray, manager of
safety systems engineering for Delphi Automotive Systems
Corp., Saginaw, Mich., “this is what [near-term] by-wire sys-
68 tems are all about—putting a computer between the driver and
umbrella [see illustration opposite] like steer-by-wire (for front
and rear steer), throttle-by-wire, and brake-by-wire.
Making the move
The transition from mechanical systems to the electronic sys-
tems of by-wire is being done piecemeal, for now at least.
 By-Wire Systems Replace Mechanical Systems
As the mechanical systems in cars give way to wires and microcontrollers, performance and safety will improve. Electric throttle valve
control and direct fuel injection have served some car models for at least five years. Active suspensions will work with brake-by-wire
systems to enhance handling and stability when the latter start appearing on 2004 model year cars; steer-by-wire may come as early
as 2002. Electrically assisted power steering is on some luxury cars today. Additional power will be provided by 42-V technology.

Direct fuel Active

injection suspension

Electric throttle
valve control

Brake-by-wire

Steer-by-wire

Electrically assisted
power steering

42-V
IEEE SPECTRUM

converter

Take, for example, throttle-by-wire, also called drive-by-wire. It engine cylinders. A mechanical linkage transmits the accel-
has been used in diesel-fueled cars for about five years now. erator pedal position to the throttle plate.
• April 2001

For at least three years, it has been on some high-performance In throttle-by-wire, “the throttle [plate] is now controlled by
gasoline-fueled cars, like the Corvette. In conventional cars, the a motor controlled by computer or microcontroller that is inde-
MOTOROLA INC.

throttle plate regulates the amount of air used in the com- pendent of the accelerator,” explained Murray. In a throttle-by-
bustion process. Pressing the accelerator determines the posi- wire car, a microcontroller determines the correct throttle plate
tion of the throttle plate within the air intake system for the position. If the driver needs sudden acceleration and stomps on 69
 AUTOMOTIVE ELECTRONICS

the accelerator pedal, a sensor on the pedal trans-

mits the driver’s pressure on the pedal to a micro- Brake-By-Wire Uses Plug-In Modules
controller, which calculates and relays the correct An electromechanical brake-by-wire system looks deceptively simple.
throttle position to the motor actually moving the Wires [red and blue] convey the driver’s pressure from a sensor on the brake
throttle plate. pedal to microcontrollers that relay the signal to electromechanical brake
Electronic control of this plate offers improved actuators at each wheel. In turn, the modular actuators squeeze the brake
pads against the brake disk to slow and stop the car. In a conventional car,
fuel economy and emissions by maintaining opti-
hydraulics would respond to pressure on the brake pedal
mal throttle conditions at all times, something
to squeeze the pads.
human drivers cannot do. Because it’s under the
hood, hidden from consumers, many drivers may
not even know that their foot on the accelerator no
longer controls the throttle plate. Carmakers intro-
duced this by-wire system first, because the throt-
tle’s primary impact is car performance, and not
safety. The idea is for drivers to gain confidence in
by-wire systems in general, thus paving the way
for more of them.
As with throttle-by-wire, the steer-by-wire
and brake-by-wire systems replace mechanical
with electronic links. Or at any rate, they will do
so in model years 2002 and 2004, respectively,
when they begin to appear on cars and even in ually, as is done in brake-by-wire, and
pickup trucks. helping the driver steer through a skid
Steer-by-wire comes in two flavors, one for front steer may prevent an accident.
and one for the rear wheels. Front steer-by-wire eliminates the There are vehicle stability systems, also called yaw control
mechanical connection between a vehicle’s front wheels and its packages by automotive suppliers, in cars today that do some-
driver, so turning the steering wheel does not directly turn thing similar, noted Jim Petrowski, development program
them, as it would in a car today. Rather, it sends a signal to a manager at Delphi Automotive. They, too, are primarily
motor at each of the front wheels. The signal instructs the focused on braking. These systems electronically control the
motors to turn the wheels. brake pressure applied separately to each wheel, which there-
Rear steer-by-wire tightens the turning radius and increases fore gets the amount of braking it needs to help guide the car
vehicle stability, so the rear wheels don’t just follow the lead of out of a skid, for instance. Models with brake-by-wire in 2006
the front wheels. For example, when parking or driving at or 2007 could be using computer control to adjust the steer-
lower speeds, the wheels in Delphi’s rear-wheel steer-by-wire ing by braking each wheel individually on the basis of input
system turn in the opposite direction to the front wheels dur- from collision avoidance radar, yaw rate sensors at each wheel,
ing tight turns, providing any size car or pickup truck with the and lateral acceleration sensors.
agility of a small car. Delphi reports that with this system, But even when brake-by-wire and steer-by-wire systems
called Quadrasteer, it has reduced a full-sized sport-utility vehi- start appearing on production vehicles, “some in the industry
cle’s turning circle radius from 13.7 meters to 10.3 meters. A may not consider it ‘true’ by-wire technology since hydraulic
Honda Civic turning radius is 10 meters. backup systems will be in place, just in case,” cautioned Del-
Brake-by-wire does everything: the antilock and traction- phi’s Murray.
control functions of today’s antilock braking systems plus By-wire systems also have manufacturing and design
brake power assist, vehicle stability enhancement control, advantages. Brake-by-wire modules would plug into the corners
parking brake control, and tunable pedal feel, all in a single, of a car, near each wheel, connected by wires to a microcon-
modular system. With today’s antilock brakes, the electronics troller connected by wires to the brake pedal, making car as-
do the brake-pedal pumping instead of the driver, but other- sembly easier and faster than “putting a plumbing system in
wise they are still mechanical systems. Pressing the brake a car,” noted Petrowski [see figure above]. “Plus, things need
pedal produces hydraulic pressure on the brake pads, which not be quite so rigidly aligned with by-wire.” Also, no hydraulic
• April 2001

squeeze the brake disk to produce friction and stop the car. lines or fluid means that there is no fluid to renew or spills that
can ruin paint.
Helping the driver On a steer-by-wire system the actuators can be localized at the
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Safety and stability are at the heart of the push to develop auto- corners of a car and at the steering wheel. Without a mechani-
motive by-wire technology, especially for a braking-and-steering cal steering shaft, designers can rethink the crumple zone to
combination. “The goal is to make the average driver as skilled increase safety. Crumple zone is the name given to the sheet
MOTOROLA INC.

as a professional test course driver in bringing the vehicle back metal surrounding the engine, so called because it is designed
to a safe and stable condition from an unsafe one,” explained to crumple up like an accordion in the event of a head-on colli-
70 Delphi’s Murray. Controlling the brakes at each wheel individ- sion. This design absorbs the force of a collision so the steering
column remains in the engine area instead of being pushed
against the driver’s chest. Without a steering column, struc-
tural support placement and materials can be reexamined.
Cars with steer-by-wire may not even have a driver’s wheel.
“Concept cars have put a joystick in place of the steering
wheel. Without the need to put the mechanical linkage in an
exact spot for steering—the wires can run to anywhere in the
cockpit of the car—joysticks make sense,” noted Pat Torossian,
manager of advanced driveline and chassis at Visteon Corp.,
Dearborn, Mich. “Carmakers would no longer need to adjust
their designs to accommodate left- and right-hand drive con-
figurations in the same vehicle model,” he concluded.
Plus, electronic systems—wires and microcontrollers—
weigh less than hydraulic pumps and mechanical actuators.
That translates into improved fuel economy, though just how
much is uncertain at this point.
Gently apply the brakes…
Luxury carmakers like BMW, Mercedes, and Audi are target-
ing the 2004 model year for the introduction of brake-by-wire,
according to The Hansen Report on Automotive Elec-
tronics, an industry newsletter. Whether or not these
will be fully electronic brake-by-wire systems with-
out hydraulic backup is still being debated. Ziomek
expects that European carmakers will implement
brake-by-wire without the backup sometime within
model years 2005–07, U.S. carmakers a year or two
after that.
There are “lots of forms of brake-by-wire,”
explained Jim Trent, chassis systems operations
manager with Motorola Inc., Austin, Texas. Electro-
mechanical braking relies on electronic control of an electric
motor to provide braking without a hydraulic backup. It’s
likely to enter vehicles within the 2008–10 model years, and
it will need 42-V technology, according to Trent. He
expects to see electromechanical braking employed
in some compact cars by 2004–05, so that relia-
bility data can be collected and analyzed.
The 42-V technology Trent refers to is the sys-
tem voltage being embraced by carmakers and sup-
pliers who see the standard 12-V battery as insufficient to
supply the power demands of cars expected to roll off assem-
bly lines by 2005. Whether the 42-V system voltage will be sup-
plied by a second lead-acid battery and the existing 12-V battery
remains uncertain. Carmakers will probably decide the fate of
the 12-V battery individually, just as they would decide whether
a car has two doors or four.
Considered “true” brake-by-wire because it does away with
the hydraulic link between the brake pedal and brake pads,
electromechanical braking puts a motor-driven caliper sup-
plied by 42-V power at each wheel. Electronics control and
operate the caliper through a multiplexed signal sent by a sen-
sor in the brake pedal. Microcontrollers on each wheel are con-
nected to a master controller with the ability to interrupt the
signal between the pedal and the caliper. (The caliper is basi-
cally the mechanism that squeezes the brake pads against the
brake disk to produce friction that slows the car.)
Compare that to the conventional disk brakes on a car today.
Pressing the brake pedal applies hydraulic pressure (via the
hydraulic fluid) to force the pads in the caliper assembly against
the spinning brake disk on each wheel. The friction between
disk and pads slows the car.
Electrohydraulic braking falls somewhere between con-
ventional hydraulic systems and electromechanical systems.
It will show up on some luxury cars in the 2002 model year,
and could also be considered brake-by-wire, according to
Trent. Though each wheel is assigned a conventional
hydraulic caliper, an electronically controlled valve controls the
actual braking force (the pressure of the fluid it releases).
Instead of the pedal directly pushing the hydraulic servo,
brake fluid pressure is governed by an electric pump con-
nected to the brake pedal by wires. Press the pedal, activate the
pump, brake the car.
Beyond just working out the technical kinks, winning over
the driving public to brake-by-wire will be crucial. When
antilock brake systems (ABS) first came out, for example, high
accident rates for cars equipped with ABS made consumers
The goal [of by-wire] is to
make the average driver as
skilled as a professional driver
in stabilizing the car
wary. In addition, ABS cost more and required a different
approach. Once drivers learned to apply steady pressure and not
pump the brake pedal themselves, wariness gave way to accept-
ance. In fact, nearly a decade after their introduction,
antilock brakes are considered standard equip-
ment by most car owners, or at least as an
option worth the purchase price.
Carmakers hope drivers will come to find
brake-by-wire equally desirable. They are intro-
ducing by-wire systems slowly, initially “making brake-
by-wire transparent to the customer,” explained Visteon’s Mike
Bullion, manager of advanced technology for chassis. “Then, as
incremental improvements are made, and hydraulics elimi-
nated from even backup roles, public confidence in the tech-
nology will build.”
…then steer the course
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With the 2002 model year, one Detroit carmaker plans to put
a steer-by-wire system on the rear axle of a pickup truck. (Con-
cerns about customer acceptance of the by-wire system
prompted the carmaker to request anonymity.) The Delphi-
• April 2001
built system, known as Quadrasteer, integrates an electro-
mechanical actuator into the rear axle, while the front-wheel
system is a conventional hydraulic system. The combination
gives the truck four-wheel steering, but the rear-wheel steering
can be turned off, leaving the truck with two-wheel steering on 71
 AUTOMOTIVE ELECTRONICS

the front wheels. In effect, the front-wheel steering on the driver turns the steering wheel. Electrically assisted power
truck will work like the power-steering system on cars today: steering, he explained, ”is an on-demand system instead of
turning the steering wheel opens the control valve propor- one that’s always on. It uses 5 percent of the energy that the
tionately to the turn, releasing hydraulic fluid that (through hydraulic system uses. That is a powerful motivator to develop
flow maintained by an engine-driven pump) activates the actu- the technology further.” Electrically assisted power steering is
ator. In turn, the actuator moves a piston connected to the currently in use on several smaller car models, including the
steering linkage providing extra torque to assist the driver in Fiat Punto in Europe and Japan’s Nissan NSX.
turning. The steering wheel is mechanically linked by the Besides winning public confidence, carmakers and by-
steering column to the steering linkage (the rack-and-pinion wire system suppliers hope for a clarification of legal issues.
in the conventional rack-and-pinion steering), which then Who is to blame in a lawsuit if the by-wire system is cor-
turns the wheels of the car. recting an oversteer on the driver’s part, say, and an accident
Though rear wheels usually have no steering components, still occurs? Is the driver 50 percent responsible, the car-
the steer-by-wire rear wheels on the pickup will have them. In maker 25 percent, and the steer-by-wire supplier the rest?
general, steer-by-wire omits the control valve, the hydraulic These issues may begin to be resolved only after the first law-
pump and fluid, and the mechanical link between the steering suits are settled.
wheel and steering linkage. Steer-by-wire has its own set of
parts: an actuator to manage the steering forces under the Clearing the speed bump
hood of the car, typically an electromechanical device with a If by-wire is to deliver on the safety promise of reducing deaths
motor to steer the wheels; a distributed control system made and injuries in accidents, the by-wire systems in a car must be
up of a network of controllers; and a mechanism to electrically able to communicate with one another. That means there
transmit the road feel back to the steering wheel and the must be a communication network that will enable by-wire sys-
amount of steering wheel turn to the control system [see fig- tems to work both individually and together, smoothly, safely,
ure, right]. “The idea is to re-create the driving feel
by providing some feedback,” explained Petrowski.
Drivers “feel” the road today through the Steer-By-Wire Enhances
mechanical link to the wheels: grooved pavement, Car Wheel Control
for example, makes the wheels vibrate. The
Only wires [green] may relay signals from a car’s steering wheel to its
mechanical links between the wheels and steering
front wheels in a front-wheel steer-by-wire system. And an electrically
wheel vibrate in turn. Similarly, the mechanical actuated motor, not a mechanical link with the steering wheel, turns
links provide a certain “feel” to the steering wheel the front wheels.
when the driver turns it that must be recreated in a
steer-by-wire system using sensors on the steering
wheel, the suspension, and the wheels.
That’s a huge challenge, Petrowski added. “The
idea is to emulate the steering feel from all of the
inputs of the car. That requires an active system con-
stantly changing in response to the conditions of
the vehicle.” Designers have looked to the videogame
world for pointers on force-feedback technology. But
real cars require a more rugged technology than
their on-screen counterparts. “After all,” Petrowski
said, gaming “joysticks went from no feedback to
some. With steering, we have to start by delivering
what people get now—and that’s a lot.” Petrowski’s
group is working on the technology, but a delivery
time on a working product is not yet set.
Like brake-by-wire, steer-by-wire also offers
greater configurability. “Carmakers could put a lux-
• April 2001

ury feel into an economy car, or adjust the steering

during cruise control operation to be a touch less
DELPHI AUTOMOTIVE SYSTEMS CORP.

responsive, so that a sneeze doesn’t prompt a lane

IEEE SPECTRUM

change,” noted Murray.

“From a technology perspective, it was electri-
cally assisted power steering that started us on the
steer-by-wire path,” said Petrowski. Instead of an
engine-driven hydraulic pump, the system uses an
72 electrically controlled motor activated when the
 and efficiently, emphasized Kurt Sievers of Philips Semicon-
ductors, in Stuttgart, Germany, where he is system marketing
manager in the global automotive sector.
By-wire systems integrated in one network offer a func-
tional advantage as well, noted Delphi’s Murray: “To control
the car requires a combination of steering and braking, so
coordination is the key,” he observed. Having one network of
controllers for both the brake- and steer-by-wire systems is
clearly more efficient than having a separate network for
each, because signal delay is reduced and system resources
are shared.
To handle the communication needs of the by-wire net-
work, the automotive industry seems to be converging on a
time-triggered architecture, said Murray. Time-triggered archi-
tecture simply means that actions are carried out at well-
defined points in time. So all the nodes in such a network have
a common time reference based on their synchronized clocks.
Messages are prioritized so that time is made available to
higher-priority actions on the network, even if another mes-
sage is being sent about another action or event.
The front-runners
The two leading time-triggered architecture candidates
are time-triggered protocol (TTP) and FlexRay. TTP
has been around for some 15 years and is backed
by Audi, Volkswagen, and TTTech Comput-
ertechnik AG, among others. Late last year a con-
sortium formed by BMW, DaimlerChrysler,
Motorola, and Philips Semiconductors announced
its own time-triggered architecture, dubbed FlexRay. A third pro-
tocol candidate—Time-Triggered Controller Area Network (TT-
CAN)—is considered a remote possibility because its develop-
ment is just beginning. Still, it cannot be ruled out because it
builds off the protocol governing the networks that control such
systems as power windows and door locks in cars today.
At first glance, FlexRay and TTP seem almost identical.
Both are time-triggered architectures but have different data
rates and transmission media. FlexRay is designed for optical
fiber for a 10-Mb/s data transmission rate; but it can also run
on copper. TTP uses copper for only 2 Mb/s, though devel-
opers at the University of Vienna are exploring fiber.
Sievers feels that FlexRay will first appear on copper, which
is today’s state of the art in cars. But fiber is likely to be the future
state of the art. It offers speedy data transmission plus weight
and electromagnetic compatibility advantages over copper; but
bending fiber to run throughout a car is not yet practical. Inter-
estingly enough, FlexRay was designed for both copper and
fiber because BMW and DaimlerChrysler, the two automakers
in the consortium, are backing different options.
According to Sievers, the thinking behind FlexRay, which is
based on a BMW protocol called ByteFlight, goes something
like this: “The wires must provide the same safety as a mechan-
ical system. So what is safeguarded in a mechanical system?
The hydraulic fluid that provides the working force. The infor-
MOTOROLA INC.
mation the wires carry is the equivalent of the hydraulic fluid,
so it must be protected. The protocol controls and organizes the
information. The information must arrive at a clearly deter-
ministic point of time—that is to say, at the correct time. To
avoid an indeterministic point in time requires predictability.”
“Deterministic” simply means that data is sent at a prede-
termined time (time-triggered), in contrast to any time (event-
triggered). In terms of FlexRay and TTP, the data messages to
and from each node on the network are scheduled against the
network’s global clock. Thus clock synchronization and per-
iodic resynchronization are required to keep all network nodes
on the same schedule and in the same time frame. TTP and
FlexRay have built-in mechanisms for clock synchronization.
The by-wire protocol must also be fault tolerant. A car oper-
ates in a rugged environment. Wires run from a very hot engine
compartment to an icy-cold trunk. And as the car moves, things
shift, including wires and connectors. So both the bus system
(that is, the wires) and the protocol must safeguard against wire
breaks, corrosion at connectors, and shorts. It does so with
redundant systems.
The dark horse protocol candidate is Time-Triggered Con-
troller Area Network, or TT-CAN. Basic CAN (without the
time trigger) is used in cars now for control and communica-
tion at up to 1 Mb/s by way of serial data transmission. But it
is an event-triggered protocol, meaning that it processes com-
mands as they occur, not by priority. Because of its slow
speed and inability to prioritize, automakers think
CAN is not suited for safety-critical applications
like electronically controlled braking or steering.
Whether TT-CAN developers are able to over-
come these problems is unknown. “It’s always dif-
ficult to expand a protocol to something it wasn’t orig-
inally designed for,” said Sievers.
Avoid the pothole and drive on
One last pothole on the by-wire road is power. The 12-V system
standard in cars today already falls short of anticipated needs
for future models [see IEEE Spectrum, May 2000, “Automotive
electronics power up,” pp. 34–39]. But despite the addition of
power-hungry by-wire systems, the amount of hydraulic pump
power saved is expected to produce a net savings in energy
consumption—once the hydraulic backup systems are gone.
Petrowski’s steering group is recommending the 42-V system
as the most appropriate to handle steer-by-wire power needs
for most cars on the roads.
Robert LeFort, automotive group vice president at Infi-
neon Technologies Corp., Northville, Mich., agrees. LeFort’s
company makes power drivers for the electrically actuated
motors that are replacing the hydraulic systems. “Depending
on the application, current requirements can range from 20
amps to over 100 amps,” he explained.
IEEE SPECTRUM
Beyond fixing the power shortage and settling on a single
communication protocol, what’s next on the by-wire horizon?
Intelligent highway systems, responded Visteon’s Bullion and
Torossian. They envision a day when a car will drive itself to a
• April 2001
destination set by the driver by using its by-wire systems in
conjunction with intelligent highway systems. But given the
lack of infrastructure and the prohibitively high costs, they
warn, don’t expect to see such a scenario for at least another
decade or two. • 73