Continental Produces 10 Millionth Standardized Speed Sensor

After the beginning of production in January 2014, the ten millionth Multi-application Unified Sensor Element (MUSE) was already manufactured and supplied to global customers. The assembling takes place in locations in Korea, China, Hungary, Mexico and India. The MUSE is designed for active camshaft and crankshaft position as well as transmission speed sensors and speed sensors.

In a statement, Thomas Jauch, Head of the Speed Sensors segment within Continental’s Passive Safety & Sensorics business unit, said that throughout the automotive industry, the cost of sensor elements is driven hugely by volume. He noted that merging various applications into one design maximizes the economies of scale.

The “true power on” (TPO), twist insensitive camshaft position sensor brings signal repeatability and high accuracy. The great thing about it is that it is highly reactive at start up and comes with outstanding run out immunity. Plus, it can operate without utilizing rare earth magnet material. Moreover, the crankshaft sensor can be programmed with or without direction detection within the same sensor design. It supports different pulse width protocols, and brings optimal robustness to target temperature changes and wheel oscillations during engine stop and start phases. The transmission speed sensor comes with vibration suppression and active diagnosis. Featuring high-speed sensing capability, it has a number of pulse widths available for direction detection.

Because of the high level of design and manufacturing concept standardization, MUSE significantly cuts down on the time and investment for development and validation testing, leading to huge development cost savings. Thanks to the full benefits of the product, the time to market Continental can offer to OEMs can be halved or more than halved.

End-of-line programming also enables the MUSE to be highly optimized for any type of engine requirement. According to Olivier Marle, Head of Electronics & Magnetics for Engine Speed Sensors, and Senior Expert Magnetic Sensors, by incorporating a number of applications into one sensor, the MUSE offers high flexibility to accommodate specification changes and engine evolution.

Meanwhile, Michael Le Bian, Head of Research & Development for Engine and Transmission Speed sensors, said that the integration of all engine and transmission speed sensors functionalities into one exceptional sensing element was a huge challenge and after two years and ten million parts manufactured, the team could be proud of this accomplishment.

Last year, Continental’s Passive Safety & Sensorics business unit bagged the Automotive News PACE (Premier Automotive Suppliers’ Contribution to Excellence) Award for its groundbreaking MUSE.