Design of embedded systems for communication and sensor interfacing in automotive and aerospace applications

Both aerospace and automotive vehicles are complex computing and communication systems with evolving demands in term of sensors and networking capabilities. After an overview of the automotive and aerospace electronic differences and similarities, several communication protocols, in particular the SpaceWire standard, are introduced. The design of new intellectual property macrocells, implementing the SpaceWire standard and the standard extensions of Protocol Identifier and Remote Memory Access protocol, is presented. The macrocells, physically implemented in FPGA technology, have been integrated and tested in the framework of an ESA space project and offer a complete SpaceWire routing and interfacing solution for both terrestrial and space (radiation tolerant) applications. Besides a high performance communication backbone, emerging class of in-vehicle applications require a collection of information coming from a huge number of sensors. A mixed signal platform suited to fast identify, trim and verify an architecture suitable to interface a given sensor is presented. Starting from an overview of several sensor circuitries, a description of the hardware and software sections of the platform is presented. Main focus is on the description of application cases to several sensors.