Electronic control unit design for electric road sweepers

Electronic control units (ECU) are embedded systems in automotive electronics that control one or more electrical systems or subsystems in any motor vehicle. Electronic control units are essentially minicomputers that monitor, control and manage different aspects of a vehicle's functionality. Data from various sensors installed in vehicles are used by electronic control units to make real-time decisions. Road sweepers are vehicles equipped with brush and vacuum or mechanical sweeping mechanisms designed to clean the streets in cities. Diesel engine is used as the power unit in existing road sweeping vehicles, and with the widespread use of electric vehicle technology, electric engine usage studies have started in road sweeping vehicles. The negative effects of diesel engines on the environment in terms of carbon emissions and noise can be prevented by using electric motors. In addition, the control parameters of electric vehicles differ from diesel engine vehicles. The electronic control units (ECU) of the existing fossil fueled vehicles used until today have been designed considering the needs of these vehicles. For electric motor vehicles, these units are partially used or tried to be used by supporting them with additional modules. In this study, a complete vehicle electronic control unit has been designed in line with the needs of electric road sweeping vehicles. In this study, a 100% electric vacuum road sweeper mounted on a truck manufactured by our sponsor ÇEKSAN Yol Süpürme Araçları A.Ş. was used. In this vehicle, a new generation electric motor was used instead of a conventional diesel engine as the power unit. Lithium-ion battery cells are used in the battery pack and there is an advanced battery management system (BMS) on it. Since electric trucks are currently in homologation processes and are not active in the market, the truck on which the road sweeper is mounted is a standard diesel fueled truck. In the study, first the vehicle requirements were determined, hardware design was made by selecting the appropriate processor and components, and then the prototype card was produced. The software was coded in C language and many libraries were created. When the software tests and simulations were successfully completed, the electronic card was subjected to EMC tests and successful results were obtained. Afterwards, the ECU was mounted on a road sweeper and field tests were successfully carried out. A commercial electronic control unit was obtained with this study.