Modeling of the automotive power supply network with VHDL-AMS

Considering the ongoing increase of the amount of electronic components in vehicles the optimization of the power network is essential. To optimize the cable harness the ampacity, the voltage drop and the temperature of every cable have to be determined. In this paper stationary and transient ways of modeling cables are presented and compared. All simulation models are created in VHDL-AMS and validated with several measurements. The benefit of exact cable models is the possibility to analyze and optimize the cable harness in an early stage of development. A method to generate a simulation model of a power supply system is presented. The complete benefit of the method is illustrated with a simplified model of a typical automotive supply cable harness. The simulation results of the model are compared to vehicle measurements.