A State Language fortheSequencing inaHybrid Electric Vehicle

The application ofastatelanguage tothereal-time con- trolofahybrid electric vehicle isexplained. Thestate language has beendeveloped bothasaspecification aidtothesystem designer and asameansfortheprogrammer toproduce microcomputer software. A translator program, whichwasdeveloped onaVAX minicomputer, preprocesses thestate language into asoftware moduletobecompiled bythestandard Intel PL/M86compiler. Thecomplex sequential logic isimplemented asahierarchy ofstate machines executing inthesoftware ofdual8086microcomputers. The mainstatemachine whichcoordinates theelectric andgasoline en- gines inthehybrid electric vehicle propulsion system isdescribed (1). Theuseofthestate language during testing stages enabled changes to themicrocomputer software toberapidly identified andimple- mented. Testresults demonstrate thepowerofthestatemachine implementation.