The RISE project, funded under the Horizon 2020 call (grant 16EMO0358K) and carried out from 1 January 2019 to 30 June 2022, investigated new architectures for predictive maintenance and redundancy‑reduced safety‑critical real‑time systems in electric autonomous vehicles. The consortium, led by Infineon Technologies AG and supported by IFAG BEX RDE RDF, extended the original schedule by six months because of COVID‑19‑related supply chain and laboratory capacity disruptions, but all objectives were ultimately met.

Infineon’s core contribution was the design of an electronic power steering (EPS) control unit that replaces the conventional microcontroller‑centric architecture with an intelligent gate driver. By integrating many EPS‑relevant modules into the gate driver, the microcontroller is reduced to a pure computing core with communication interfaces only. The interface between microcontroller and gate driver was fully digitalised, allowing longer transmission distances and opening the possibility of centralised computation in alternative system locations. The resulting EPS board was fabricated, motor‑control software was written, and a demonstrator was assembled for laboratory and vehicle testing. The demonstrator validated the concept and achieved a 47 % reduction in printed‑circuit‑board area compared with the reference design available at project start, translating into significant savings in material, energy, and space.

Predictive Health Monitoring (PHM) elements were added to the EPS board without increasing its footprint. Their placement was coordinated with partners and based on ongoing RISE investigations. The PHM‑enabled board was manufactured, integrated into the demonstrator, validated in the lab, and finally installed in a functional vehicle where it operated successfully. Infineon extended the software stack with a CAN interface to transmit steering commands to the EPS and to send PHM data to the cloud, demonstrating the value of PHM for fleet monitoring and dynamic reconfiguration.

A second major technical outcome was the development of a Mission‑Mode Built‑In Self‑Test (LBIST) for microcontrollers that can run during normal application operation. Infineon proposed a scan‑based LBIST architecture that minimises area overhead while maximising test coverage and keeping test time short. Instead of silicon implementation, the design was prototyped on an FPGA emulator, enabling flexible definition of flash memory contents and the injection of faults for empirical verification. The hierarchical system‑on‑chip (SoC) architecture was partitioned into clusters, allowing isolated LBIST execution for individual blocks while the rest of the system continued to operate normally. The demonstrator proved that the LBIST could be performed in the background without functional interference, fulfilling the project’s research goals.

Throughout the project, Infineon led the hardware design, software development, and demonstrator integration, while IFAG BEX RDE RDF contributed to the research framework, system integration, and validation activities. The collaboration ensured that the technical results were aligned with industry needs and that the demonstrator could be deployed in real vehicle environments. The RISE project therefore delivered a set of scalable, resource‑efficient building blocks for autonomous electric vehicles, supporting broader adoption of sustainable mobility solutions and reducing greenhouse‑gas emissions.