Osterman Racecar: Sandy Oylle

Your name is Sandy Oylle, and you are Chief Racecar Engineer for Osterman
Corporation, a medium-sized company developing drive-by-wire technology for large
automobile companies. Drive-by-wire means that the mechanical connections that the
driver normally uses to control the automobiles subsystems are replaced by electronic
connections. Drive-by-wire allows unprecedented coordination of the traditionally
independent automotive subsystemsengine, braking, suspension, steering, etc.and it
permits greater flexibility as to where these systems are located in the car.

The racing team

In order to demonstrate the companys new technology, Dr. Casey Osterman, the
company founder and CEO, decided three years ago to put drive-by-wire into a Formula
1 racing car. To date, the results have been impressive: the Osterman drive-by-wire car
has placed in the top three in over half of the 24 competitions into which it has been
entered, and it has won four moderately important races, including three already this
season. Rumors abound that the company plans to go public. This afternoon at 1:00 P.M.
the car is running in the prestigious Cambridge 500, the most important and competitive
race on the circuit. Casey is hosting executives from Toyolet, a big automobile
manufacturer. Everyone in the company is hoping for a strong showing, especially since
Otto Corporation, your main competitor, has entered their drive-by-wire vehicle.

Problems
The new technology has encountered its share of problems, however, and youve been
working with test engineers in the Research Division to try to understand them.
Ostermans drive-by-wire control system employs five microprocessors for redundancy,
but seven times out of the 24 races, at least one microprocessor has been knocked out of
commission. The failures werent noticed at race time, but postmortem analyses have
showed that solder balls, used to mount electronic chips onto substrates, had cracked,
leading to intermittent electrical discontinuities. If all five microprocessors should be
knocked out during a race, the result would be catastrophic, since the driver would lose
all control of the vehicle.
Dana Cueway, a test engineer back at the Research Division called you this morning with
a theory. Dana suspects that microprocessor failures are caused by at low temperatures,
and that it is unsafe to race below 53 degrees. And the racing track scoreboard is
currently showing a temperature of 30 degrees.
Dana is a solid, conservative engineer but sometimes doesnt see the big picture and
has been known to jump to conclusions, you have always valued Danas opinion. After
the phone call from Dana, you immediately called Casey to report Danas
recommendation that the car not race. Casey decided that the three of you should meet
immediately to discuss the situation. Dana is driving out to the racetrack for the noon
meeting. The post time of 1:00 P.M. wont leave much time for decision-making.

Meeting preparation
You called Terry, the technician in the Research Division who maintains the racing
database. Terry told you that races have been run at temperatures ranging from 53 to 81
degrees. Terry listed for you the races in which microprocessors have failed, and you
made a table:
Date
11/12/98
08/30/99
02/03/00
04/06/00
01/24/01
10/30/01
01/12/02

Race
Distance Temperature Failures
Stanford Challenge
500
70
1
Berkeley Express
350
70
1
Princeton Grand Am
850
57
1
New Haven All-Star
550
63
1
Austin Shootout
800
53
3
Pasadena Showcase
700
75
2
Pittsburgh Grand Prix
500
58
1

There is no cause-and-effect relationship to temperature that you can see. The Pasadena
Showcase a couple of months ago had two microprocessors failures, but it was the
warmest day of the bunch.
Youve been racing for three years now without a single catastrophic failure of the driveby-wire system. During that time, youve had three serious accidents due to other causes:
two tire blowouts and one motor malfunction. In the latter incident, the engine threw a
piston that punctured a tire, causing the driver to lose control of the vehicle, which
slammed into a wall. The driver was fortunate to escape with only a broken collarbone.
Although there certainly are problems with solder balls, coping with microprocessor
failures is why the drive-by-wire system has five-way redundancy to begin with. Racing
is a risky business, but no one ever won a race by just sitting in the pits.
Before you hang up with Terry, you make sure the database technician will be in the lab
during lunchtime in case you need to call for more information. (Your Professor will
play the part of Terry, if you have any questions.)