• • • ELECTRICAL DESIGN SOFTWARE • • • Speeding up safety in the age of
electric and autonomous cars By Krishna Samavedam, Lead Product Manager, Ansys
s electric and autonomous vehicles continue to reshape the transportation landscape, the engineering community finds itself at the intersection of opportunity and complexity.
A These technologies promise cleaner, smarter
mobility, but they also demand a fundamental rethinking of how we design and validate systems. For electrical engineers, especially those focused on embedded systems, power electronics and safety critical hardware software integration, simulation is not just a tool, it’s becoming a necessity.
Complexity is the new normal The modern vehicle is as much a network of digital systems as it is a mechanical machine. Electric vehicles (EVs) and autonomous vehicles (AVs) depend on densely interconnected control systems, high performance computing and real time data processing. This creates challenges that go beyond the traditional automotive workflow, especially for those designing electronic control units (ECUs), power distribution networks and safety critical functions. Consider battery management systems (BMS), for example. These systems must monitor cell voltage, temperature and charge state with precision and speed. Any delay or inaccuracy could lead to thermal runaway or battery degradation. But simulating such systems is inherently complex due to the interplay of physical, chemical and electrical phenomena. Traditional single core processing environments can bottleneck these simulations, stretching runtimes and compromising iteration cycles.
From feasible to fundamental Multicore computing is unlocking simulation workflows once too slow or costly to run routinely. For example, testing a real-time BMS control algorithm in a multicore setup cut simulation time by 60 per cent compared to single-core processing. Using Ansys SCADE and Elektrobit’s AUTOSAR compliant OS, showed how automated code generation and smart task scheduling streamline embedded development. This isn’t just about performance, it enables realistic evaluation of design alternatives. The shift to multicore also demands intelligent task synchronisation, especially with AUTOSAR standards. Embedded software engineers must go beyond code generation to verify execution timing, ensure safety compliance, and integrate across systems, all under tighter time to market pressure.
High performance computing (HPC): Scaling for system level insight
Embedded systems need precise, real-time simulations, but broader vehicle-level analyses like crashworthiness or electromagnetic compatibility demand large-scale compute power. HPC clusters traditionally meet this need by distributing workloads across many CPUs. However, as design fidelity and model complexity rise, even HPC faces limits in time and cost.
Engineers are now turning to GPU-accelerated computing. With their highly parallel architecture, GPUs excel at tasks like computational fluid dynamics (CFD). In one study, four GPUs delivered over 12X speedup versus a CPU setup with
hundreds of cores. Scaling to eight GPUs nearly doubled that. This isn’t just academic. For engineers evaluating drag, heat dissipation, or battery airflow, such gains enable faster iteration and better system-level optimisation.
Accelerating embedded
AI and simulation convergence AI is another force reshaping engineering workflows. For electrical engineers working on intelligent sensing, control, or diagnostics, AI-trained models are increasingly used to accelerate simulations, either by learning from past runs or by predicting results for new configurations. When integrated into the simulation loop, AI can reduce design point evaluations from days to minutes.
The convergence of AI and simulation also helps address variability and uncertainty, critical concerns when designing systems for safety and robustness. For example, AI accelerated simulation can support sensitivity analyses across a vast number of input variables, aiding engineers in understanding how design tolerances affect real world outcomes.
Infrastructure matters As powerful as simulation tools have become, they’re only as effective as the infrastructure behind them. Fixed, on premises compute environments can quickly become limiting, especially when scaling to full system validation. Engineers need to deploy and iterate on large models quickly and cost effectively.
Cloud solutions like Ansys Gateway powered by
AWS or Ansys Access on Microsoft Azure now offer on demand access to large-scale compute resources tailored to simulation workloads. For electrical engineers, this means no longer being constrained by hardware. Whether validating thermal performance of a power inverter or simulating electromagnetic behaviour of high-speed interfaces, scalable infrastructure can mean the difference between hitting or missing a milestone.
Simulation as a
strategic enabler As EVs and AVs grow more complex, the demands on electrical engineering teams grow with them. Whether you’re working on battery systems, sensor fusion algorithms, high voltage switching, or software-in-the-loop testing, simulation is becoming the most practical path to faster development, better safety margins and more confident decision making.
It’s not just about solving problems; it’s about engineering faster and at scale. In this new era of electrified, autonomous mobility, simulation isn’t just an advantage it’s a necessity.
18 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING • APRIL 2025
electricalengineeringmagazine.co.uk
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