lectronic controls watch over all components and make them work in harmony.
There are many design features on a hybrid vehicle which complicate the technology, as there are with any vehicle when a new electronic component is added (Lemieux, 2003). The challenges to be overcome in dealing with designing new electronic systems include the added cost, power consumption, the operating environment, reliability and durability, safety and security, and regulation of the new system. Hybrid propulsion systems come in two major designs: parallel systems, in which the gasoline-powered engine provides mechanical power to the wheels in parallel to the motor providing electrical power; and series systems, in which the gasoline engine must first generate electricity, which is then used by the motor to turn the wheels. Even within these two types of hybrid systems, there are many design variations possible.
Design of hybrid vehicles relies heavily on embedded technology, which is already being used in conventional vehicles, e.g. in vehicle transmission systems (Lemieux, 2003). However, many of these systems assume the gasoline engine has to be running for anything to happen, and this is not true in a hybrid vehicle because although the gasoline engine shuts off when the vehicle is idling, the electric motor kicks in when this happens. Many embedded controllers are needed to make a hybrid vehicle run properly, and these controllers have to be interconnected through a high-speed area network bus. Extensive design and development of new control systems is required to make sure each controller controls its own part of the system, and also coordinates with all other controllers in real time. It is estimated that while electronics systems will account for only 25 percent of the cost designing of hybrid vehicles, the engineering effort needed to design these systems may account for as much as 75 percent or more of all the development cost. <...