There was a time when every control unit in the car operated completely stand-alone and therefore had its own sensors and actuators. These sensors and actuators were therefore directly connected to the control unit. Simple and effective. However, as the number of sensors, actuators and control units continued to increase, the cable harnesses also grew. Soon literally miles of cable were needed and the overview was hard to find. An improvement had to be made. That is why the CAN network was introduced in the early 1990s. Control units were able to exchange information with each other, including signals from sensors. A true revolution in the automotive world. Since then, the network architecture within a vehicle has continued to develop. With the arrival of electric powertrains and autonomous technology, even greater strides are guaranteed to be made in the near future. But this also means that a lot will change in the way electronics are implemented in a vehicle. Long story short: within 10 years a domain controller or supercomputer will be in charge of all functions within the entire powertrain. The ECU as we know it now will then have a more 30 AFTERMARKET FEBRUARY 2024 TECHNICAL www.aftermarketonline.net ETHER/OR ACtronics explains how automotive ethernet contributes to the development of domain controllers subordinate role. As these domain controllers and the associated networks continue to develop, the individual control units will slowly disappear (yes, the ECU too), until eventually only a handful of domain controllers or supercomputers rule the roost. But before that, we want to explain a little more about the network that will play an important role in this. Despite the fact that automotive ethernet has been available for quite some time, its ingenuity is increasing. Fig. 1
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