Consultants say interference in vehicle electronics is possible

Consultants say interference in vehicle electronics is possible
Neil Roland
Automotive News -- March 23, 2010 - 4:42 pm ET

WASHINGTON -- Testing by Toyota Motor Corp. and other automakers has never
detected electronic causes of sudden acceleration because it has looked for
the wrong evidence and because this evidence is difficult to detect, three
British consultants with doctorates in engineering said today.

The consultants, who expect to meet tomorrow with U.S. investigators, said
Toyota's pedal assembly and electronic throttle-control system have a number
of parts that aren't shielded against electromagnetic interference, or EMI.

"Thirty years' empirical evidence overwhelmingly points to (sudden
acceleration) being caused by electronic system faults undetectable by
inspection or testing," said Keith Armstrong, a engineering consultant from
the United Kingdom who appeared with two other engineers at a Washington
news conference organized here by consumer advocates.

Armstrong, who said he was interviewed last month by U.S. National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration investigators, said the problem with
electronic interference is industrywide. "EMI is endemic in electronics," he
said. EMI is electrical disturbances in the circuits.

Real-life EMI

Tests by Toyota and other automakers don't cover most real-life EMI, nor do
they simulate typical faults to verify that backup measures work, Armstrong
said.


Read mo
http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dl...#ixzz0j3hYs6VV

One word of caution - these experts are woking for the Center for Auto
Safety, a trial lawyer funded group run by Clarence Ditlow and Jane
Claybrook. They still want Audi to recal 1985 Audi 5000's.

Ed

"C. E. White" > wrote in message
m...
> Consultants say interference in vehicle electronics is possible
> Neil Roland
> Automotive News -- March 23, 2010 - 4:42 pm ET
>
> WASHINGTON -- Testing by Toyota Motor Corp. and other automakers has never
> detected electronic causes of sudden acceleration because it has looked
> for the wrong evidence and because this evidence is difficult to detect,
> three British consultants with doctorates in engineering said today.
>
> The consultants, who expect to meet tomorrow with U.S. investigators, said
> Toyota's pedal assembly and electronic throttle-control system have a
> number of parts that aren't shielded against electromagnetic interference,
> or EMI.
>
> "Thirty years' empirical evidence overwhelmingly points to (sudden
> acceleration) being caused by electronic system faults undetectable by
> inspection or testing," said Keith Armstrong, a engineering consultant
> from the United Kingdom who appeared with two other engineers at a
> Washington news conference organized here by consumer advocates.
>
> Armstrong, who said he was interviewed last month by U.S. National Highway
> Traffic Safety Administration investigators, said the problem with
> electronic interference is industrywide. "EMI is endemic in electronics,"
> he said. EMI is electrical disturbances in the circuits.
>
> Real-life EMI
>
> Tests by Toyota and other automakers don't cover most real-life EMI, nor
> do they simulate typical faults to verify that backup measures work,
> Armstrong said.
>
>
> Read mo
> http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dl...#ixzz0j3hYs6VV

On Tue, 23 Mar 2010 23:00:16 -0400, C. E. White wrote:

>
> One word of caution - these experts are woking for the Center for Auto
> Safety, a trial lawyer funded group run by Clarence Ditlow and Jane
> Claybrook. They still want Audi to recal 1985 Audi 5000's.

I saw one the other day. I don't think the owner will sell it to them
because it was in mint condition.

They can recall all the rest, I'm sure most of them have been in junkyards
for a while...

On Mar 23, 7:55*pm, "C. E. White" >
wrote:
> Consultants say interference in vehicle electronics is possible
> Neil Roland
> Automotive News -- March 23, 2010 - 4:42 pm ET
>
> WASHINGTON -- Testing by Toyota Motor Corp. and other automakers has never
> detected electronic causes of sudden acceleration because it has looked for
> the wrong evidence and because this evidence is difficult to detect, three
> British consultants with doctorates in engineering said today.
>
> The consultants, who expect to meet tomorrow with U.S. investigators, said
> Toyota's pedal assembly and electronic throttle-control system have a number
> of parts that aren't shielded against electromagnetic interference, or EMI.
>
> "Thirty years' empirical evidence overwhelmingly points to (sudden
> acceleration) being caused by electronic system faults undetectable by
> inspection or testing," said Keith Armstrong, a engineering consultant from
> the United Kingdom who appeared with two other engineers at a Washington
> news conference organized here by consumer advocates.
>
> Armstrong, who said he was interviewed last month by U.S. National Highway
> Traffic Safety Administration investigators, said the problem with
> electronic interference is industrywide. "EMI is endemic in electronics," he
> said. EMI is electrical disturbances in the circuits.
>
> Real-life EMI
>
> Tests by Toyota and other automakers don't cover most real-life EMI, nor do
> they simulate typical faults to verify that backup measures work, Armstrong
> said.
>
> Read mohttp://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dl...0323/OEM/10032...

I couldn't find an official toyota talk forum but I found this
one....it has all the info about the 2010 Toyota Motor Corp. Recall &
Prius brake pedal fix. I found it to be very informative, it has more
commentary than just the official toyota recall site....
http://www.ToyotaBrakeRecall.org check it out

C. E. White wrote:
>
> Consultants say interference in vehicle electronics is possible
> Neil Roland
> Automotive News -- March 23, 2010 - 4:42 pm ET
>
> WASHINGTON -- Testing by Toyota Motor Corp. and other automakers has never
> detected electronic causes of sudden acceleration because it has looked for
> the wrong evidence and because this evidence is difficult to detect, three
> British consultants with doctorates in engineering said today.

I thought the auto industry had long been paranoid about this because
when they were virtually mandated to install computers to meet
emissions standards, it was a big leap for in technology and maybe the
first time something so vulnerable to interference yet so critical to
safety had been installed on such a large scale. And aren't almost
all the sensor inputs for fairly low frequency signals that can be
easily treated to filter out higher frequencies, such as those used by
cell phones and speed radar? Also don't car computers have a timer
that interrupts the main program every few milliseconds to check its
proper operation and restart the computer if a problem is detected?

Here's a 30-year-old article from Popular Science about the first
digital car computers (skip to page 54) that includes a photo of a
test chamber used for zapping cars with interference:

http://tinyurl.com/yat7s79

http://books.google.com/books?id=ZAE...age&q=&f=false

C. E. White wrote:
>
> One word of caution - these experts are woking for the Center for Auto
> Safety, a trial lawyer funded group run by Clarence Ditlow and Jane
> Claybrook. They still want Audi to recal 1985 Audi 5000's.

Ironically, Audi ran magazine ads in the 1980s that discussed adapting
Audis to America. In one ad they said the corrosion protection had to
be improved to handle the salt we poured on the roads in the winter,
and in another ad they said RF interference was a lot worse here than
in Europe.

dbu'' > wrote in
:


>
> I run high power two way radio equipment in my Toyota and have NEVER
> in almost seven years had one glitch of any kind. Nor has any of my
> cell phone equipment ever caused any glitches. EMI can easily be
> suppressed and I believe Toyota has done an extremely good job of
> suppressing it.



I find it difficult to imagine how stray EMI could interfere with the
throttle over a period of time and distance sufficiently long enough to
cause a vehicle to accelerate to a high speed.

I also find it difficult to imagine how EMI could override many systems all
at once, such that the car would be impossible to control or shut down.


--
Tegger

I suspect software errors rather than interference. The auto industry
is actually fairly good in designing resistance to interference, but in
my opinion not very good on software design.

I used to work in aerospace industry and had some courses in designing
mission critical software. It is very hard to check out software in a
really large program, and design of real-time software is quite
difficult. I suspect a lot of their software validation is statistical
and that is not the best way.

"C. E. White" > wrote in message
>
> "Thirty years' empirical evidence overwhelmingly points to (sudden
> acceleration) being caused by electronic system faults undetectable by
> inspection or testing," said Keith Armstrong, a engineering consultant
> from the United Kingdom who appeared with two other engineers at a
> Washington news conference organized here by consumer advocates.
>
> Armstrong, who said he was interviewed last month by U.S. National Highway
> Traffic Safety Administration investigators, said the problem with
> electronic interference is industrywide. "EMI is endemic in electronics,"
> he said. EMI is electrical disturbances in the circuits.
>
> Real-life EMI
>
> Tests by Toyota and other automakers don't cover most real-life EMI, nor
> do they simulate typical faults to verify that backup measures work,
> Armstrong said.
>

Airplanes have seen the same sort of interference from cell phones, but it
doesnt seem to be very repeatable and is normally fleeting with no residual
results.

"hls" > wrote:

> Airplanes have seen the same sort of interference from cell phones, but it
> doesnt seem to be very repeatable and is normally fleeting with no
> residual
> results.

I think that internal software or electronic hardware platform errors are
far more likely that glitches due to cell phone signals, sun spots, etc...