How many computers in a modern motorcycle?

 Cars are becoming more computerized. This can be called
either a mixed blessing... or a Faustian Bargain. Bike makers
are following this trend. With EFI for example, and all
the associated issues such as remapping problems, locked
proprietary software, paying extra for a Power Commander, etc.

Here below are some excerpts from comp.risks #25.94; Feb 14, 2010
raising some of the issues as they apply to cages. Some of them
would apply to bikes as well.

I don't even know how many computers there are in my bikes,
or what they do. My '07 Thrux/Scram/Bonnie is carbureted
but the ignition might be processor-controlled.

Imagine a million lines of code managing your bike. And studies
have shown a very high likelihood of programming bugs in
systems that complex.

SQ

Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2010 14:41:34 PST
Subject: Electronic Systems That Make Modern Cars Go (Jim Motavalli)

Source: Jim Motavalli, *The New York Times*, 4 Feb 2010
http://nytimes.com/2010/02/05/technology/05electronics.html

The electronic systems in modern cars and trucks -- under new scrutiny as
regulators continue to raise concerns about Toyota vehicles -- are packed
with up to 100 million lines of computer code, more than in some jet
fighters.  ``It would be easy to say the modern car is a computer on wheels,
but it's more like 30 or more computers on wheels,'' said Bruce Emaus, the
chairman of SAE International's embedded software standards committee.  Even
basic vehicles have at least 30 of these microprocessor-controlled devices,
known as electronic control units, and some luxury cars have as many as 100.

   [Nice article on "throttle-by-wire" cars, eschewing physical
linkages.  PGN]

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:09:57 -0800
Subject: Toyota Braking Problem Link

It appears that the problem was software:

   Toyota to recall 400,000 Prius cars over software glitch.  Following
   driver complaints about poor braking performance, Toyota plans to recall
   around 400,000 Prius hybrid cars to replace software controlling the
   antilock braking system.
   http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/news.asp?idV365

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:56:55 +0200
Subject: How computers took over our cars

Increasingly, computers are in control of our cars, says Paul Horrell, and
that is changing our relationship with the open road
   http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8510228.stm

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 7:33:14 PST
Subject: Ex-Toyota lawyer points to electronic throttle control
(USATODAY.com)

Nancy Leveson commented to me, ``When is the auto industry (and everyone
else) going to learn that you cannot `exhaustively test' software and
introduce modern safety engineering techniques that are appropriate for
digital systems and not just use those developed for the electro-mechanical
systems of the past?''

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2010 13:38:00 -0600
Subject: Motor racing solution to Toyota runaway

It occurred to me that I've had a throttle stuck wide open twice in the
past[*], and neither incident was at all dramatic; the recent Toyota problem
is only deadly due to the misapplication of the PC-style "soft power button"
concept to a safety critical system. This is compounded by the use of a
non-standard control interface in an environment that is otherwise highly
standardized - that very standardization is a "key" safety feature.

Home-made dashboards with non-standard layouts and pushbutton ignition
switches are common in motor racing, and a simple, robust solution was
implemented decades ago - all race cars are required to have a *mechanical*
switch which cuts power to all drive-train systems, with standard color,
labeling and placement.

Perhaps in future cars with ignition buttons like this Toyota, or software
controlled drive-trains like in a hybrid, there could be a mandatory
standard requiring a hard-wired engine cutoff knob on the right hand side of
the steering column, thus implementing the UI everyone (who doesn't drive a
Saab) is familiar with?

Also ... I would have expected that the US federal "PRND21" standard for
automatic transmission controls would require that a car could always be
freely shifted from D or R to N to guard against just this circumstance ...
any US auto engineers available to comment?

* For Lindsay Marshall's amusement: one in Tyne Tunnel at rush hour, when it
was used by the A1.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 23:27:06 -0600
Subject: Mercedes Benz E Class Commercial

An ad for the Mercedes Benz E Class touts its "safety" features, among which
is that it can "even stop itself if [the driver] becomes distracted".
  

Right. Because nothing could EVER go wrong with THAT.

Richard S. Russell, 2642 Kendall Av. #2, Madison  WI  53705-3736
608+233-5640 RichardSRussell@tds.net http://richardsrussell.livejournal.com/

Any idiot, upon seeing the first automobile, could easily predict that it
would revolutionize transportation. Only someone with exceptionally keen
insight could have foreseen that it would also revolutionize the sex lives
of teenagers.  Isaac Asimov

------------------------------

 
Once you introduce a network (rather than having a single processor with a
million lines of code), then you substantially raise the complexity of the
system.  You then have to deal with variations that come about because of
network message delivery, intermittent network message connectivity, the
rare transmission error, etc.  So "million lines of code" does not tell the
whole story.  "500,000 lines of code talking to another 500,000 lines of
code over a network" is far worse than "million lines of code".

A major motivator for the proliferation of microcontrollers in automobiles
is saving wire.  Some luxury cars in the past have had 50+ conductors going
into the driver's door (power locks, power windows for all four doors, power
mirrors, lockouts for window controls on other doors, etc.).  Using a more
zonal architecture (a microcontroller in the driver's door talking over a
network), you can reduce that to either 3 or 4 conductors.  (The reduction
comes about because the micro in the door talks to other micros over the
single or dual network wire whenever a control is pressed or released.)  You
can save a LOT of copper and increase reliability in certain types of
vehicles.

By using a network, you can also add features (that are just software once a
network is in place) for essentially free.  For example, a feature in some
cars is that the radio volume varies automatically in response to vehicle
speed (and presumably wind noise).  Since the radio and the ABS module may
be on the network, all the radio does is keep an eye on the vehicle speed
messages on the network.

Motorcycles don't have the long wiring runs that cars do, so there won't be
as much incentive to have multiple microcontrollers.  In fact, except for
NAV systems and radios, you could probably get away with ONE
microcontroller.  If the engine controller is doing turn signals and ABS too
... not very harmful because the wiring runs are so short in a bike.

DF.

 

Computer theory says:

  Every program can be reduced by one instruction.
  Every program has at least one bug.
  Therefore, every program can be reduced to one buggy
    instruction.

IBM actually demonstrated this once by releasing a null
program, IEFBR14, with a bug in it.

 As originally released, IEFBR14 read:

       return;

 And it **should** have read:

       return 0;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEFBR14

 
One of the fun things I remember about C was that if you demanded a
return value from a function that didn't provide one, as in your
example, you would get whatever happened to be in the first machine
register.

   On 12/16/2010 10:37 PM, sean_q wrote:

Pretty much EVERYTHING is becoming more "computerized,"
generally because "computerized" means a less expensive
but more reliable means of getting the job done.  But "how
computerized" a given product is or "how many computers"
it contains depends a lot on just what you mean when you
say "computer."  It's not like there's Core i7 with a million
lines of code behind every "computerized" function.

Bob M.