Retrofit and functional expansion of testing equipment

basic information

In the testing sites for drive system components such as automotive engines, transmissions, and motors, it is not uncommon to still use testing equipment and control systems that were introduced 20 to 30 years ago. Since these were specialized facilities built with significant investment at the time, it is difficult to easily decide to discard or update them, leading to many cases where they remain unused on-site. Furthermore, in recent years, there has been a significant shift in demand from engine-centered evaluations to testing for motors and inverters for HEVs and EVs. However, existing control devices are often designed with specific themes in mind, which poses challenges in flexibly responding to new testing conditions and evaluations. Additionally, issues such as: - Lack of versatility due to specialized design of control devices - Difficulty in continuing maintenance due to discontinued parts or manufacturers going out of business - Operational risks from aging upper-side PCs and interfaces have compounded, resulting in cases where testing equipment that should be usable has become idle assets. Moreover, attempting to reconstruct these aging control devices and testing systems from scratch requires extremely large capital investment.

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Applications/Examples of results

【 Case 1 】 Retrofit of Test Equipment for Clutch-Related Components In the test equipment for clutch components that connect the engine and transmission, there was a demand for an upgrade to a more high-functioning and stable testing environment due to increased usage frequency. However, refreshing the control system using conventional methods would incur a very large investment burden. Therefore, instead of manufacturing a new dedicated control device, we retrofitted it to a generic configuration by combining high-functioning PCs, IF panels, cRIOs, etc. This improved testing performance and reliability while keeping costs down, creating an environment capable of continuous evaluation operations. 【 Case 2 】 Transition from Engine Testing to HEV/EV Motor Testing As the electrification of automobiles progresses, the focus of testing has significantly shifted from engine-centered evaluations to motor and inverter evaluations. Ideally, it would be necessary to completely rebuild the entire testing system, but there are on-site challenges where existing test machine motors and mechanical configurations want to be continued while also keeping investment costs low.

Detailed information

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  By retrofitting and expanding the functionality of testing equipment, we can achieve a high-value testing environment that was difficult to realize with conventional facilities. By introducing the latest PC performance and control and measurement platforms, and combining real-time OS devices like cRIO with FPGA processing, we can measure vibrations and load fluctuations that occur instantaneously while varying rotational speed and torque transiently, with accurate cycles in the millisecond to nanosecond range. This enables a highly deterministic and synchronized testing simulation where control and measurement are always established on the same time axis, significantly improving the reproducibility of test conditions and the reliability of data. Additionally, in terms of operation, we move away from reliance on manual input and individual device settings as in the past, integrating condition setting, automated operation, and data organization through application software. This achieves automation, synchronization, acceleration, and high resolution in testing, evolving into a highly functional control environment required for current drive system development.