One of the most noteworthy events with respect to the research and development we carried out at A&D last year was the creation of the engine bench test laboratory, where we now have a Toyota Vista combustion engine running.

It is rather difficult for us to imagine how sophisticated and complex it can be to run a combustion engine separated from its own control systems, since we can turn the engine of our car on so easily just by turning the ignition key. As a matter of fact, it is almost impossible to run an engine when separated from its electronic control systems as a typical car of today has over 50 CPUs to control most of the mechanical movements. Besides, as fuel efficiency, pollution-control and safety have become the major issues to keep competitiveness in the industry, more and more manufacturers are relying on electronically controlled algorithms, which make a car further removed from the mechanical machine it used to be.

Hikaru Furukawa starts the engine controlled by our own electronics

There are many different ways of approaching fuel-efficient and pollution-less automobiles. Just to name a few, we know Toyota's hybrid cars that run on both combustion engine and electrical motors, Gen IV of GM that changes the number of cylinders while driving, HCCI (Homogeneous-Charge Compression Ignition combustion) that aims to take advantage of both gasoline and diesel engines, and fuel cell engines that are considered to be the ultimate solution to fuel efficient and pollution-free automobiles. No matter which way to go, one of the key technologies with all these new developments concerns electronics and algorithms that control all the key components such as engine, motor, transmission, brakes, suspension, power steering and airbags.

The Engine Control Unit separated from the engine.

A&D's DSP Unit controlling the engine.

The engine that began running in our test laboratory has been separated from its own ECU, Engine Control Unit, and is running with the signals electronically generated by our DSP (digital signal processing) systems, which are created in conjunction with our own GUI, Graphic User Interface, and software architecture that offers most economical software development and customization. Having developed this capability, we are now able to experiment with different algorithms to run an engine, though our goal is to provide best data acquisition, control and simulation tools to the automotive industry for the development of new algorithms in the shortest possible time. By having our own engine test facility we should be able to accomplish this mission faster and in a more realistic manner.

	Michigan State Governor Jennifer Granholm (center) visits our booth

In April this year we attended for the first time as an exhibitor having our own booth the exhibition held by SAE or Society of Automotive Engineers at Detroit, Michigan USA. We have brought and displayed the RPT or Rapid Prototyping and ECU validation tools along with our torque measurement systems such as axel and wheel torque meters. This was our debut on the US market for our DSP business. There we had the honor of having Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm visit our booth as A&D's intention of creating its new entity in the State of Michigan has been received as a most welcome investment from abroad offering great potential for the automotive industry.

When Jack Welch became CEO of General Electric in April 1981, he announced that he would restructure the company by concentrating on the businesses that have potential to be number one or two positions in their field. He stated GE should stand for GREAT ENGINE that pulls the company to be better than the best. It meant the engine to set in motion a series of changes and drive every one in the same direction. "Number 1 or 2: Fix, Sell or Close" was his strategy.

When Hikaru Furukawa started the engine in our newly built test laboratory at Technical Center in August 2004, he meant it to be the driving force for our technological thrust for the next decade onwards. It is not like the engine of GE that was symbolic, but it is a real combustion engine of a Toyota Vista that he ignited, from which the next generation development tools for automotive industry are to be created; but his vision does not stop there. He wants to exploit digital signal processing technologies in wider scope so that we can apply them to all our businesses; testing, weighing and medical, in order to enhance our business domains and continue to be a technology driven company. The interest and enthusiasm from the customers who saw our products at SAE Show reaffirmed the fact our Engine would drive us further as a technology driven company for this century.

Learn more about our success at the SAE World Congress this year by clicking on this link: SAE World Congress

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