Developing electric vehicles safely with the Safety Layer VCU

With the Safety Layer Vehicle Control Unit (VCU), the Swiss contract developer and solution provider Durot Electric has created an important basis for the safe development of electric vehicles and mobile machines. The VCU with integrated safety level is aimed at vehicle manufacturers who want to focus on the development of vehicle variants and individualization – in other words, on what makes their product unique.

When developing electric vehicles and electric work machines such as excavators or municipal vehicles, entrepreneurs and the development team are faced with the decision of whether to develop this safety architecture for functional safety from scratch themselves or to procure it.

With the Safety Layer VCU, you can purchase a control unit with important safety functions as a basis. Within the company, they can develop the functions themselves that make up the added value of their product for the user. Decoupling the security and application levels reduces the effort and time to market.

The vehicle control system ensures compliance with the standards and the most important safety aspects. The package consists of the latest hardware from TTControl and its basic software and runtime environment. The package is supplemented by the safety level from Durot Electric. The solution is particularly interesting for SMEs in the electromobility sector.

The VCU forms the core of the vehicle. All basic safety functions are implemented and validated in the safety application under the responsibility of Durot Electric. This eliminates considerable expenses for initial certification and recertification for iterations and variants by the vehicle manufacturers.

The vehicle manufacturer’s application level is developed independently and transferred to the control unit. Once the safety application has been certified as a basis, these applications can then be further developed independently on top. This allows resources to be saved at every stage of development. The transition to model-based software development using Matlab Simulink is also possible.

The Safety Layer VCU thus enables manufacturers to carry out sustainable and independent development work as well as differentiation for customer benefit, while part of the responsibility is transferred to Durot Electric. On request, Durot Electric also provides support in the development of applications.

Durot Electric GmbH, based in Mörschwil in the canton of St. Gallen, is one of Switzerland’s leading development service providers in the field of electromobility. The company was founded in 2017 by developers with many years of industry and project experience. The company has had a new branch in Winterthur since 2022. Durot Electric’s range of services includes the development of safe systems, software and electromechanics as well as the provision of components. The offer is aimed at manufacturers of electric vehicles, electric machines and robots. By successfully supporting vehicle and mechanical engineering companies with electrification, the company is making a sustainable contribution to conserving finite resources.