With the rapid development of the automobile industry, the complexity of the automobile electronic system is increasing, and the requirements for the communication system are becoming increasingly strict. As an advanced signal transmission carrier, optical fiber wiring harness is widely used in automobile industry. Optical fiber, with its advantages of high speed, high reliability, low loss and anti-electromagnetic interference, is gradually changing the data transmission mode of automobiles, and has shown great application potential in the field of automotive communication. In this paper, the basic characteristics of fiber optic wiring harness and its application in automobile are discussed, and its advantages and development prospects are analyzed.

With the intelligent and connected automobile technology, the demand for communication and data transmission is increasing day by day, and the security and stability of vehicle electronic communication system has become the focus of research. As an advanced communication technology, optical fiber communication technology provides a new idea for the development of vehicle electronic communication system. This paper analyzes the characteristics of optical fiber communication technology, analyzes the application of optical fiber in the future automobile from many aspects, discusses its advantages, and looks forward to its development trend.

Technical overview of optical fiber wire harnesses

Optical fiber cable harness uses light wave as carrier and optical fiber as transmission medium. It has the advantages of high speed, high reliability, low loss and anti-electromagnetic interference. Its transmission rate is much higher than that of traditional copper wire or coaxial cable, which can meet the communication needs of vehicle systems for large data volume and high real-time. The link of optical fiber communication mainly consists of optical connector and optical fiber carrier to realize high-speed signal transmission.

1.1 Optical Fiber Connectors

Optical fiber connector is an optical passive device that realizes the active connection between optical fibers. It is mainly composed of optical fiber reinforcement, optical fiber alignment, elastic docking, head lock, optical cable fixing, pin anti-rotation, and optical cable buffering. Optical fiber connectors usually use ceramic pins and ceramic bushing for optical fiber alignment, and spring ensures elastic butt on the end face of the pins. The spring is in the pre-compression state before docking, so that the locking force of the pins will not move. During docking, the pins will produce secondary compression due to the back of the pins, and the elastic force will be fed back to the pins, so that the two pins of the docking are always in the stress contact and compression state during the docking process.

1.2 Optical Fiber Conductor

The cylindrical shape of the fiber is mainly composed of the core, cladding, and coating layer. The transmission principle of optical fiber uses the phenomenon of total reflection of light, that is, when the light is incident from the optically dense medium (relatively high refractive index) to the optically sparse medium (relatively low refractive index), if the incidence Angle is greater than the critical Angle of total reflection, the light will no longer refract, but all reflect back to the original medium, ensuring that the optical signal can spread in the fiber without leaking out.

The optical fiber has the following features:

(1) Transmission speed, distance, content: the transmission speed of optical fiber is very fast, can transmit data to a long distance, and can transmit a large amount of data at the same time.

(2) Free from electromagnetic interference: The optical fiber transmits the optical signal, which is not interfered by electromagnetic waves, so the signal quality is more stable.

(3) Bandwidth: Optical fiber has a very wide frequency band, which can support high-speed data transmission.

(4) Low loss: The transmission loss of optical fiber is very low, and it can theoretically transmit hundreds of kilometers or even more without losing signal quality.

(5) High security: the optical fiber transmission signal will not produce electromagnetic radiation, nor will it be eavesdropped by external electromagnetic waves, so it is more suitable for some scenarios with high data security requirements.

(6) Small size and light weight: Optical fiber is smaller and lighter than traditional copper cables, convenient deployment and maintenance, especially in large-scale communication networks, this advantage is more obvious.

Advantages of optical fiber harness in automotive intelligent application

When the transmission rate of copper wire reaches more than 10 GB/s, it will be necessary to use thicker copper wire to meet the speed requirements, but in the arrangement environment of the car, the thickening of the copper wire has brought about the increase of the weight of the vehicle and the increase of the cost of the car, which can not meet the requirements of the arrangement environment of the vehicle with high speed and low weight. The fiber optic wiring harness technology can significantly improve the quality and reliability of communication, reduce electromagnetic interference, and at the same time, improve the safety and stability of the vehicle without additional weight.

(1) The transmission rate of optical fiber cable harnesses is much higher than that of traditional copper wires or coaxial cables, and millions of megabytes of data can be transmitted per second, which can meet the communication needs of modern vehicles for large amounts of data and high real-time. The maximum speed of the traditional copper wire network can only reach 10GB/s, which is difficult to meet the requirements of high-speed transmission.

(2) The transmission loss of optical fiber is extremely low, and the loss per kilometer is usually less than 0.0035 dB/m, which can ensure that the signal still maintains a high quality during long-distance transmission. In contrast, the transmission loss of the traditional copper wire network is 0.5 dB/m, and the loss is large in the long-distance transmission process.

(3) Optical fiber communication technology uses light waves to transmit signals in optical fibers, which has significant immunity to electromagnetic interference compared with traditional copper wire transmission.

(4) Compared with traditional metal wires, Plastic Optical Fiber (POF), as a kind of automotive optical fiber, can significantly reduce vehicle mass and improve vehicle economy.

The application of fiber optic wiring harness technology in automobiles not only improves the quality and reliability of communication, but also helps to reduce the overall weight of the vehicle, improve fuel efficiency, and adapt to various extreme driving environments.