Electronic Throttle Control

Electronic Throttle Control (ETC) is becoming an important part of automotive industry
today. Also known as the Drive-By-Wire technology, applied to our daily life, it can
result in an efficient throttle body controlling improving fuel efficiency, handling and
ride comfort in an automobile. The objective of the project is to understand where the
future of electronic control in the automotive industry is going due to advances in
technology. The main focus of the project is focused on controlling the position of the
throttle opening also known as the "butterfly". For this purpose, a remote controlled
(RC) servomotor was used for positioning, the "butterfly" opening. The RC servomotor
will be controlled by a PIC microcontroller with the fastest response it can achieve. For
error detection purpose, a feedback signal will be sent back to the microcontroller via a
throttle positioning sensor (TPS) to be analyzed. With existing feedback data, the
microcontroller would be able to correct the error significantly.