Engine Control Units (ECU) are used extensively in modern engines from everything from a family car engines, motorcycle engines, formula 1 racing car engines, to military helicopter engines. Advances in electronics over the past few decades have meant that these units are smaller and more powerful controlling many engine functions.

The units are in essence a micro-computer; the engine control unit reads data taken from various sensors positioned around the engine to perform various control, management and data logging functions. Some of the most common functions include Ignition control, Fuel injection control, turbocharger control, idle speed control, throttle control, traction control and data logging. In more advanced systems control functions can be done real-time from remote computers as in F1 racing cars, super bikes and rally cars.

Modern Engine control Units (also known as Engine Management Systems (EMS)) generally consist of a number of chips mounted on a printed circuit board set in a casing generally made from aluminium or ceramic material depending on the application; the components on the printed circuit boards which include a microprocessor which processes the input data from the sensors in real-time, EPROMS or Flash Memory. Software is stored on the board either in the microcontroller or other chips on the printed circuit board.

These devices require a high input voltage and draw a high drain current in a hostile environment. Lithium technology provides the best solution for this application. The Sonnenschein and Tadiran range of Lithium cells include high temperature cells which can still deliver high power even at extremes of temperature found in engine environments.

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