Platform Based Design for Automotive Sensor Conditioning

Abstract: In this paper a general architecture suitable to interface several kinds of sensors for automotive applications is presented. A platform based design approach is pursued to improve system performance while minimizing time-to-market.. The platform is composed by an analog front-end and a digital section. The latter is based on a microcontroller core (8051 IP by Oregano) plus a set of dedicated hardware dedicated to the complex signal processing required for sensor conditioning. The microcontroller handles also the communication with external devices (as a PC) for data output and fast prototyping. A case study is presented concerning the conditioning of a Gyro yaw rate sensor for automotive applications. Measured performance results outperform current state-of-the-art commercial devices.