What Is Car ECU?
by Eddie Rendal -
The vehicle's computer is an electrical computer which used in present day auto motives to control its computerized components. Reading input from sensors and delivering output to digital units, the engine control module control the appropriate functioning of the automotive.
The vehicle computer obtain inputs from the different components in the auto motive such as the crankshaft and camshaft sensors to smartly compute data such as cooling system, intake, exhaust and several other components to assest and control the running condition of the transmission, engine system like the traction control (ABS), the camshafts position, the air bags and others.
A simple illustration is the wheel speed detector which examine the wheel speed and send the data to the vehicle computer. Using this infrastructure, rather than handing out data to number of modules from one sensor, the data is being delivered by the car's computer to all the components that makes use of this data such as the speedometer, ABS, suspension system and others.
On-board Diagnostics Port
A motor vehicle that incorporate vehicle computer module will also provide On Board Diagnostics (OBD) provision to enable officials or driver to connect diagnostics equipage to diagnose the vehicle ECM settings.
Vehicle's computer anti theft control
The engine immobilization computer is theft countering mechanism placed on the ECU. It forbids the car from igniting unless driver is using a registered key. This infrastructure uses a unique transponder key that holds the digital security pin-code or in other words the password. The auto motive ECM will not turn on the fuel system infrastructure and the ignition circuit if the pin-code in the key is different then the pin-code reserved in the immobilizer.
Different vehicle makers use several types of car computers including the BCM (Brake Control Module), GEM (General Electric Module, PCM (Powertrain Control Module)) and more. Latest car accommodate many ECUs and with this increasing complexity, the programming required in configuring or resetting the vehicle computer system is turning much more challenging to operate.