Dongfeng Motor Company Uses MathWorks Tools for Model-Based Design of Hybrid Electric Vehicle System

NATICK, Mass.--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--The MathWorks today announced that Dongfeng Electric Vehicle (DFEV), a research and development arm of Chinese automotive maker Dongfeng Motor Company, has developed a battery management system within 18 months using MathWorks tools for Model-Based Design. The new battery management system has been installed in Dongfeng’s EQ6110 hybrid electric city bus, which delivers 30 percent better fuel efficiency than standard city buses while also lowering emissions.

“The MathWorks tools helped us develop key battery management technology using our own expertise, in an environment that facilitated early and continuous verification of our design, all without compromising our high focus on quality.”

“With Model-Based Design, we have an integrated process for development, from idea through production code generation,” said Dr. Xiaokang Liu, principal engineer at Dongfeng Electric Vehicle. “The MathWorks tools helped us develop key battery management technology using our own expertise, in an environment that facilitated early and continuous verification of our design, all without compromising our high focus on quality.”

Faced with the challenge of developing a battery management system in 18 months, the six-person Dongfeng Electric Vehicle engineering team determined that it needed to eliminate the debugging and maintenance effort of traditional hand-coding implementations. The team developed the controller model and a model of the battery using test data, both in Simulink. The engineers performed simulation and used rapid control prototyping to run the control algorithm against a real battery, before generating production code using Real-Time Workshop Embedded Coder for their target ECU, which is based on the Freescale S12 microcontroller. Tools for Model-Based Design helped the team model, verify, and generate all the application code—more than 100,000 lines—while creating a single environment for design, simulation and verification of the battery management system.

Model-Based Design helped the team, which included individuals with backgrounds in varying disciplines of engineering, work more collaboratively to beat the project timeline and meet quality standards such as the MISRA C guidelines. DFEV engineers are reusing the controller design for the company’s HEV sedan, which is currently in development.

“Model-Based Design allowed Dongfeng engineers to easily visualize and verify their designs, enabling critical changes to be identified earlier in the design process, and saving them valuable time on both the front and back ends,” said Jon Friedman, automotive industry marketing manager at The MathWorks. “The development process that Dongfeng engineers created, using Simulink and Real-Time Workshop Embedded Coder, will prove valuable as they continue to develop next-generation hybrid electric vehicle technology.”

About Dongfeng Electric Vehicle

Dongfeng Electric Vehicle Co., Ltd. (DFEV) a hi-tech company located in Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone, is engaging in researching, manufacturing and marketing of electric vehicles (EVs).

As the first enterprise in China, Dongfeng Motor Corporation, the mother company of DFEV, commenced the research of EVs at the beginning of the national Eight Five-Year Plan. Since September 2001, DFEV has been founded as a corporation shared by government, industry, university and Institute. Under the scientific and canonical management, DFEV concentrates on developing and commercializing the EV products, including the pure electric vehicles, the hybrid electric vehicles and the fuel cell vehicles.

About The MathWorks

The MathWorks is the leading developer of mathematical computing software. MATLAB, the language of technical computing, is a programming environment for algorithm development, data analysis, visualization, and numeric computation. Simulink is a graphical environment for simulation and Model-Based Design of multidomain dynamic and embedded systems. Engineers and scientists worldwide rely on these product families to accelerate the pace of discovery, innovation, and development in automotive, aerospace, electronics, financial services, biotech-pharmaceutical, and other industries. MathWorks products are also fundamental teaching and research tools in the world’s universities and learning institutions.

Founded in 1984, The MathWorks employs more than 2100 people in 15 countries, with headquarters in Natick, Massachusetts, U.S.A. For additional information, visit www.mathworks.com.

© 2009 The MathWorks, Inc. MATLAB and Simulink are registered trademarks of The MathWorks, Inc. See www.mathworks.com/trademarks for a list of additional trademarks. Other product or brand names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

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