Applications
ASG in a standard vehicle
What ASG changes in an ordinary road car, and why it fits.
In one sentence In a standard road vehicle, electric or combustion, ASG replaces the harness and its buses with one ring, and the function-specific ECU set with universal zone modules that all act on the same vehicle state every millisecond.
How ASG fits into the vehicle
Every electrical node, a lamp, a sensor, a motor, attaches to the nearest zone module inside a fixed wire-length budget. The modules sit on one ring that carries both power and data. Nothing is wired point to point back to a central unit.
- A harness of 2–3.5 km with its buses and gateways One ring carrying power and data through the vehicle
- 40 to 100+ mostly function-specific ECUs Universal zone modules, each set by where it sits and what it runs
- Parts exchanging messages, each with its own timing to validate One shared vehicle state, committed for every module every millisecond
Why it fits: the advantages
The list below is the short version. Each point is a property of the architecture, not a feature that has to be added.
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No conflicts between systems
A modern car runs a very large number of systems, and field data shows this is where most failures begin. ASG resolves it at the operating-system level: one shared state, one writer per value, so two functions cannot contend for the same output.
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Less wiring, fewer connectors
A sharp reduction in the length, weight and cost of wiring and connectors, and in the manual labour to lay it in. On common industry figures the wiring and its installation are second only to the engine and the body in total cost.
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Power-flow management
Managing the electrical power flows across the whole vehicle in real time yields a sharp reduction in energy use. ASG has hands-on experience of this on an electric vehicle.
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An electronic fuse
On a short circuit the zone module disconnects the load in about 10 µs, before the fault develops, so ASG needs no mechanical relays. In effect the system is faster than the short circuit itself.
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Sensorless motor control
ASG removes the Hall-effect position sensors fitted to every electric motor: the motor state is read from the power network instead. That takes cost and a failure point out of every position-controlled drive in the vehicle, and there are many.
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A clean path to 48 V
The supply line carries 48 V; downstream of the zone module it is 12 V, so every existing 12 V component still works. The usual obstacle to 48 V, the thin range of 48 V parts, does not arise.
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Adaptability
Most changes to how the vehicle behaves are made in software, against a known and complete vehicle state, without touching the hardware or the harness.
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Synchronous real-time control
Every node sees the whole vehicle in real time and reacts on algorithms held in advance. Information enters the channel already processed, rather than being gathered to a central unit and sent back out. This is what matters most for self-driving.
Electric or combustion
ASG is the electrical and electronic architecture, not the powertrain, so one design covers electric, hybrid and combustion vehicles. The powertrain only decides which actuators and sensors hang off the modules.
On an electric or hybrid vehicle the same real-time control of power flows that manages the rest of the car also governs how braking energy is recovered and where it is spent. ASG makes the whole vehicle state available every millisecond, which is the input those energy-allocation algorithms need. Removing the harness mass helps too. The effect on range is real but not quantified here: it depends on the vehicle and the drive cycle, and the site carries no figure for it.
Trucks, buses and long vehicles
Long wheelbases, trailers and high node counts are where the fixed timing and the shorter harness matter most. A conventional architecture adds bus length, gateways and validation effort with every extra metre and every extra module; ASG’s 1 ms commit does not change with vehicle length or module count over the supported range, and the ring replaces the trunk harness rather than extending it.
Commercial vehicles were among the earliest targets for this architecture for exactly that reason.
What it changes, in numbers
These are platform-scale figures, each vehicle-dependent and each with a stated basis.
Figures are vehicle-dependent. Each is derived on the methodology page.
The compact-car worked example carries one vehicle end to end. The methodology page states what every figure is measured against, and the adoption path covers introducing ASG domain by domain or as a full transition.
Toward autonomy
The synchronous vehicle state that ASG produces, every parameter timestamped to the same millisecond, is exactly what an autonomous control stack needs to act on the whole vehicle at once. As the market moves toward autonomy it moves toward this kind of real-time control. ASG for autonomous vehicles sets that out.
Questions
Does ASG replace the ECUs or sit alongside them?
It replaces them. The function-specific ECU set becomes a smaller number of universal zone modules, each running the software for whatever sits in its zone. Where a supplier subsystem has to stay on its own bus for a transition, its zone module translates that traffic in-block, with no separate gateway.
Does it work on a combustion car, not just an EV?
Yes. ASG is the E/E architecture, not the powertrain. One ring and one synchronous state cover electric, hybrid and combustion vehicles alike; the powertrain only changes which actuators and sensors hang off the modules.
What about the move to 48 V?
The supply line runs at 48 V and each zone module steps it down to 12 V locally, so the existing 12 V component catalogue is still usable. The move to 48 V does not wait on a full set of 48 V parts.
Is there a figure for the range gain on an EV?
No. Removing harness mass and allocating energy at the control layer increases range, but the site carries no percentage: any number would depend entirely on the vehicle, the drive cycle and conditions, and it is not a proven, measured result.