Once upon a time, four wheels were driven without the use of electronic control units. We are talking about the early years of the last century. Today, however, the use of the electronic control unit and its optimization is something essential. Let's find out their history together in this article.

Surely when Benz began to develop the first engines to be placed on cars, he did not have in mind the creation of high-performance electronic control units. The beginning of the automotive era was in fact without electronic control units ... and this is certainly an aspect to consider.

In fact, technological progress and the progress of information technology applied to the automotive world should be appreciated. Currently, any action that is carried out inside a car passes through an electronic control unit.

When we say that any gesture made inside the car passes inside the electronic control unit, we really mean any gesture.

The main electronic control unit, the main one and the most important one, is certainly the one that manages the acceleration and the various peripherals of the control systems.

The introduction of electronic control units was necessary in order to overcome the mechanical limit that every internal combustion engine had. In fact, it was realized that internal combustion engines had limits of optimization and improvement. To overcome this limit, the electronic control unit was introduced.

It is made up of various electronic modules that are able to analyze and improve the functioning of the engine itself.

The very first ECUs had a mechanical link between the accelerator pedal and the fuel inlet to the engine. In this way they only controlled the amount of fuel that was put into each cylinder.

Between the 70s and 80s the control units were mainly control devices. Their goal was to make the carburetor more dynamic and efficient, thanks to a pair of solenoid valves mounted on the carburetor itself.

The 1980s saw the advent of fuel injection systems. For this reason, the ignition control of the engines was entrusted to the control units. In this way, a significant improvement in performance was observed, as the advance was the subject of study by the control units. When we talk about advance, we mean the instant in which the spark plug strikes the spark during the combustion phase. The consequences were simply two, but very important. Lower fuel consumption and less mechanical failures.

Diesel engines were the subject of innovation in the early nineties with the first control units dedicated to it. We always remember that the diesel engine, although conceptually it may seem similar to the petrol engine, has a different fuel ignition mode. In fact, the diesel engine, due to the low flammability of diesel fuel, has a combustion that develops thanks to the increase in pressure inside the combustion chamber.

Modern technology has led electronic control units to be increasingly considered in terms of active control also of assisted driving systems. Just think of the adaptive cruise control and futuristic way of thinking about the car, with autonomous driving.

Always remember that the electronic control units have not been optimized for each single geographical area. In fact, car manufacturers develop electronic control units, creating a sort of univocal standard for all countries in the world. As you can imagine, driving a car and managing it electronically on the roads of Morocco is not the same as a car driving on the snow-covered roads of Norway.

There are therefore companies that improve the electronic control units of cars, in order to set them on the single geographical area. These companies have the peculiarity, that is to allow a form of optimization for all the engines that compete in professional races. It is clear that any race of production-derived cars certainly has a control unit that is defined as "remapped".

All this is clearly the result of an important and very delicate engineering optimization process , which must certainly be done by professionals with decades of experience behind them. It is unthinkable to carry out an optimization and remapping process of the control unit, with a few hours of experience behind us and absolutely without a high-ranking engineering level training.

That said, electronic control units will increasingly play a crucial role in our cars now and in the near future as well. So every time we get on a car, let us always remember the fundamental role of electronic control units.

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