Garrett Motion Inc., a leading differentiated technology provider in the automotive industry, has developed a new turbocharger boost control software that can significantly enhance turbo performance and health and help unlock optimized energy management in hybrid vehicles.

Electrifying a turbocharger removes the constraint of needing a small turbine with excellent efficiency to drive the compressor at low flow rates, Garrett notes. Instead, it allows rightsizing the turbine for Lambda 1 rated power. Any penalty in inertia can be more than compensated for by an E-Motor and the addition of a wide-range compressor can result in both improving low-end and stretching high-end performance simultaneously.

A “right-sized” electrified turbocharger therefore can deliver CO₂ reduction by supporting down-sizing and down-speeding at the same time.

Garrett is providing E-Turbo hardware as well as boost control and health management algorithms for deployment within existing electronic control units (ECUs) to manage and optimize boost, torque, efficiency and emissions to further address new levels of emission reduction regulations.

Building upon the E-Turbo hardware and the electronics to run it, Garrett’s latest innovation adds a modular software control for the boosting system, easy to integrate in existing ECUs.

On its own this will help optimize powertrain performance but set in the context of electrification and vehicle complexity, it is one of the building blocks Garrett sees in paving a technology pathway to predictive energy and powertrain optimization as well as vehicle health and maintenance prognostics.

Garrett’s Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) software is capable of more than just governing turbo and engine interaction. It is a comprehensive solution enabling the detection of intermittent faults and anomalies within complex vehicle systems. In this way, Garrett’s software can monitor all vehicle systems and component performance in real time, so that repairs and maintenance can be anticipated and maintenance initiated to prevent costly downtime and loss of productivity.

Garrett’s IVHM creates value in several ways:

• By anticipating and directing the fixing of faults before they occur;

• By providing smart diagnostics, for faster and more effective maintenance activities; and

• By enhancing vehicle or fleet reliability through prognosis-based maintenance.