November 24, 2008
TTControl, TTTech's subsidiary specialized in electronic control systems for off-highway vehicles, has developed a new modular electronic architecture for its latest electronic controller family. As these electronic control units (ECUs) feature flexible I/Os and provide functional safety according to the international standards ISO 13849 PL d and IEC 61508 SIL 2, customers benefit from single scaleable platforms at an attractive price.
TTControl's TTC 50 controller family is designed for maximum flexibility. All output pins of the ECUs are configurable as inputs. Besides, the digital inputs can be used with high-side or low-side switches. Analog inputs can be utilized as resistive, potentiometric or current inputs. All configuration options are selectable by software. The units are programmable in C or CoDeSys®.
The TTC 50 controller family allows extending the standard ECU with customer- or application-specific features in a cost-effective way. With a small daughter board it becomes possible to add customer-specific resources to the standard product. The module has access to the free pins on the connector and is able to communicate via a serial bus with the CPU on the main board.
The top-level ECU of this controller family fulfills both the requirements of IEC 61508 SIL 2 and ISO 13849 PL d. TÜV Nord has confirmed pre-compliance with these international safety standards in their assessment of the concept. Furthermore, this controller architecture comprises a main CPU, for executing the user application and a smaller diagnostic CPU, which continuously monitors the main CPU and the safety-critical inputs and outputs. In case an error is detected, an internal switch opens, disconnecting all output stages from power supply and shifting the vehicle to a safe state. The watchdog CPU avoids uncommanded movements of the vehicle and equipment, thereby ensuring safe working conditions for users.
With the powerful CPU XC2287 from Infineon, the TTC 50 controller family meets future requirements of the off-highway industry. TTC 50 has achieved the "International Protection Rating" IP 67 according to the international standard IEC 60529. This means that this ECU is dust-tight, with complete protection against contact, and protected against harmful ingress of water.
