Automotive

As part of our efforts towards a sustainable future, Sevensoft are focusing on automotive transport as an area where our expertise in system design, thermodynamics and high reliability software can be of benefit.

Automotive research is currently heavily focused on areas such as hybrid drivetrain systems as they make use of low risk technology and can take advantage of short term government concessions. Although hybrid petrol-electric cars are popular, their environmental credentials are currently unimpressive as many diesel cars have lower emissions and require fewer resources in their manufacture.

A new generation of 'plug in hybrid' and 'electric with range extender' vehicles will eclipse the current generation of cars, whilst the promise of the methanol fuel cell car may still be realised. All these vehicles will rely on power electronics and cunning software algorithms to squeeze the best performance from every megajoule of energy.

A further area that is ripe for improvement is adaptive aerodynamics. Spoilers that are raised or lowered with speed, airbrakes and suspension that lowers the car at speed are becoming more popular, but there are many old ideas that could be resurrected. The slow deployment of such ideas is probably largely attributable to the ban on moveable aerodynamics in motorsports.

If you are developing automotive electronics, we are offering a development board for the this environment. It uses the Renesas R8C23 microprocessor to control two high current high side switches and either a stepper motor or two small DC motors. The board has a LIN bus interface. This board was developed for some in house experimental work, and is suitable for anyone wishing to focus on software development rather than hardware. Please enquire about price and availability.