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Many of the future motor vehicle functions are relevant to safety and have to be carefully analysed. The systems should not only be safe, but also reliable, reasonably priced and light. Therefore, one of the developer’s tasks is to design the new systems under development for the optimum economy. Along with the new components developed for a certain application, a range of components will be involved which are already used as standard in other applications. In the case of these standard components, such as batteries, cables, connectors, various mechanical components etc., there are often a number of different types of component available. These all have the same function while varying in reliability and/or economic efficiency. It is possible for an unmanageable number of variations to be created for the application being developed. The number of possible solutions increases exponentially with each new component. Different computer-aided optimisation methods can be used in order to find the most economical solution, taking all of the constraints into consideration. These differ in solution-finding speed, but also in the quality of their results. The method used should find the component types, which produce the most economical complete system for a specified topology, installation location and system reliability. Three optimisation methods undergo a critical comparison in this study, with regards to their advantages and disadvantages, as well as their possible uses. The vague component data of the solution found are also analysed and evaluated. It is then possible to compare systems at various stages of development and to estimate the development risks.

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