Advances in Intelligent Vehicle Control

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue Advances in Intelligent Vehicle Control that was published in the journal Sensors. It presents a collection of eleven papers that covers a range of topics, such as the development of intelligent control algorithms for active safety systems, smart sensors, and intelligent and efficient driving. The contributions presented in these papers can serve as useful tools for researchers who are interested in new vehicle technology and in the improvement of vehicle control systems

Vehicle and Traffic Safety

The book is devoted to contemporary issues regarding the safety of motor vehicles and road traffic. It presents the achievements of scientists, specialists, and industry representatives in the following selected areas of road transport safety and automotive engineering: active and passive vehicle safety, vehicle dynamics and stability, testing of vehicles (and their assemblies), including electric cars as well as autonomous vehicles. Selected issues from the area of accident analysis and reconstruction are discussed. The impact on road safety of aspects such as traffic control systems, road infrastructure, and human factors is also considered

Visual performance maps for expanded human choice based on duty/demand cycles in hybrid vehicle’s Multi-speed hub Drive Wheels

The Multi-speed hub Drive Wheel (MDW) for four-independent drive wheels of future electric vehicles has recently been designed by the Robotics Research Group at the University of Texas at Austin. The MDW is equipped with four distinct speeds (two electrical and two mechanical) with the aim of improving efficiency and enhancing the drivability features of the vehicle, such as acceleration and braking on the driver’s command. The MDW will have different unsprung weights in the wheels depending on a range of suggested rated power levels such as 16, 20, 24, 32, up to a maximum of 40 hp, which would then become basic choices for the customer. The overall objective of the research is to analytically develop a framework for maximizing human vehicle choice by means of visualizing human performance needs/requirements so that customer demands can be met at the time of purchase for an open architecture hybrid electric vehicle which would then be assembled on demand. In addition, based on the customer’s individual duty/demand cycle, a vehicle can then be tailored to meet the particular customer priorities such as cost and efficiency, or on the other end of the spectrum, one who is an aggressive driver. This leads to expanded human choice for future electric vehicles. To meet human needs, the appropriate MDW will be software customized to suit the customer’s demand cycle. Satisfying human needs implies responding directly to human commands / objectives over the life history of the vehicle. The decision framework developed in this study is based on detailed human needs structured by performance maps to visually guide the customer in terms of purchase / operation / maintenance / refreshment decisions. This framework augments the MDW design procedure to maximize operational efficiency and drivability for unique customer requirements. The customer-oriented duty cycle analysis based on an individual’s measured demand cycle is proposed to structure the MDW specification in terms of ten purchase criteria. Also, a comparison of two speed regimes in the MDW and Protean’s single speed in-wheel model is made and discussed in terms of efficiency. The analytical result shows that a remarkable efficiency improvement in terms of loss reduction of 1.9x for urban and 1.8x for highway duty cycles is feasible. In addition, another loss reduction of 1.2x is expected by using the reconfigurable power/electronic controllers. The present study looked at the effect of the unsprung mass on acceleration, braking, and cornering maneuvers under various road conditions (i.e., dry asphalt, wet asphalt, snowy or icy road) which was evaluated and compared based on the implementation of a nonlinear 14 DOF full-vehicle model based on ride (7 DOF), handling (3 DOF), tire (4 DOF), slip ratio, slip angle, and the tire magic formula. Based on the 14 DOF full-vehicle model, visual performance maps are generated in terms of ten operational criteria to assist the customer to visualize the vehicle’s expected performance.Mechanical Engineerin

Performance and Safety Enhancement Strategies in Vehicle Dynamics and Ground Contact

Recent trends in vehicle engineering are testament to the great efforts that scientists and industries have made to seek solutions to enhance both the performance and safety of vehicular systems. This Special Issue aims to contribute to the study of modern vehicle dynamics, attracting recent experimental and in-simulation advances that are the basis for current technological growth and future mobility. The area involves research, studies, and projects derived from vehicle dynamics that aim to enhance vehicle performance in terms of handling, comfort, and adherence, and to examine safety optimization in the emerging contexts of smart, connected, and autonomous driving.This Special Issue focuses on new findings in the following topics:(1) Experimental and modelling activities that aim to investigate interaction phenomena from the macroscale, analyzing vehicle data, to the microscale, accounting for local contact mechanics; (2) Control strategies focused on vehicle performance enhancement, in terms of handling/grip, comfort and safety for passengers, motorsports, and future mobility scenarios; (3) Innovative technologies to improve the safety and performance of the vehicle and its subsystems; (4) Identification of vehicle and tire/wheel model parameters and status with innovative methodologies and algorithms; (5) Implementation of real-time software, logics, and models in onboard architectures and driving simulators; (6) Studies and analyses oriented toward the correlation among the factors affecting vehicle performance and safety; (7) Application use cases in road and off-road vehicles, e-bikes, motorcycles, buses, trucks, etc

Advanced Control and Estimation Concepts, and New Hardware Topologies for Future Mobility

According to the National Research Council, the use of embedded systems throughout society could well overtake previous milestones in the information revolution. Mechatronics is the synergistic combination of electronic, mechanical engineering, controls, software and systems engineering in the design of processes and products. Mechatronic systems put “intelligence” into physical systems. Embedded sensors/actuators/processors are integral parts of mechatronic systems. The implementation of mechatronic systems is consistently on the rise. However, manufacturers are working hard to reduce the implementation cost of these systems while trying avoid compromising product quality. One way of addressing these conflicting objectives is through new automatic control methods, virtual sensing/estimation, and new innovative hardware topologies

Design and Characterization for Regenerative Shock Absorbers

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Mechanical Components Design and Optimization for an All-Wheel-Drive Series Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle

The University of Waterloo Alternative Fuels Team (UWAFT) is a student team conceived in 1996, participating in numerous student competitions which aim to reduce emissions and improve fuel economy of passenger vehicles. UWAFT was led by faculty advisors Dr. Roydon Fraser and Dr. Michael Fowler in the EcoCAR 2 competition sponsored by the Department of Energy and General Motors. The team designed and competed with a 2013 Chevrolet Malibu, which was converted to an All-Wheel-Drive Series Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle. UWAFT was conceived with the primary goal of providing university students with an unparalleled level of hands-on experience through a project-based environment. Such projects build on the knowledge and skills learned in the classroom, and presents additional challenges that are not normally seen from the classroom alone. Such challenges include designing for manufacturability, sourcing components, solving problems with uncertainty, teamwork, project planning, and much more. Safety is a primary consideration with all the projects, and proper training are provided for the students, including high voltage training. One particular topic that is receiving increasing attention is knowledge retention. It is a recurring issue due to the nature of student teams, as experienced team members eventually graduate and leave the team. Although there is usually an overlap of experienced and new team members, sometimes there is a large turnover rate and knowledge retention within the team becomes a problem as a large number of experienced team members graduate and leave at once. As such, detailed documentation of lessons learned is becoming a valuable tool in team knowledge retention as well as saving experienced team members the trouble of individually teaching each and every new volunteer that joins the team. This thesis provides an outline of the general mechanical design processes as well as a focus on the mechanical design of major mechanical components that are required during a conversion of a vehicle to an Electric Vehicle (EV) or Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV). This thesis serves as part of the knowledge retention system for UWAFT such that new team members will have an easier time learning the design processes and understanding some of the things to look out for, with recommendations from the author based on his experiences from designing these components for UWAFT’s EcoCAR 2 vehicle

Development of Hybrid Electromagnetic Dampers for Vehicle Suspension Systems

Vehicle suspension systems have been extensively explored in the past decades, contributing to ride comfort, handling and safety improvements. The new generation of powertrain and propulsion systems, as a new trend in modern vehicles, poses significant challenges to suspension system design. Consequently, novel suspension concepts are required, not only to improve the vehicle’s dynamic performance, but also to enhance the fuel economy by utilizing regeneration functions. However, the development of new-generation suspension systems necessitates advanced suspension components, such as springs and dampers. This Ph.D. thesis, on the development of hybrid electromagnetic dampers is an Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) collaborative project sponsored by Mechworks Systems Inc. The ultimate goal of this project is to conduct feasibility study of the development of electromagnetic dampers for automotive suspension system applications. With new improvements in power electronics and magnetic materials, electromagnetic dampers are forging the way as a new technology in vibration isolation systems such as vehicle suspension systems. The use of electromagnetic dampers in active vehicle suspension systems has drawn considerable attention in the recent years, attributed to the fact that active suspension systems have superior performance in terms of ride comfort and road-handling performances compared to their passive and semi-active counterparts in automotive applications. As a response to the expanding demand for superior vehicle suspension systems, this thesis describes the design and development of a new electromagnetic damper as a customized linear permanent magnet actuator to be used in active suspension systems. The proposed electromagnetic damper has energy harvesting capability. Unlike commercial passive/semi-active dampers that convert the vibration kinetic energy into heat, the dissipated energy in electromagnetic dampers can be regenerated as useful electrical energy. Electromagnetic dampers are used in active suspension systems, where the damping coefficient is controlled rapidly and reliably through electrical manipulations. Although demonstrating superb performance, active suspensions still have some issues that must be overcome. They have high energy consumption, weight, and cost, and are not fail-safe in case of a power break-down. Since the introduction of the electromagnetic dampers, the challenge was to address these drawbacks. Hybrid electromagnetic dampers, which are proposed in this Ph.D. thesis, are potential solutions to high weight, high cost, and fail-safety issues of an active suspension system. The hybrid electromagnetic damper utilizes the high performance of an active electromagnetic damper with the reliability of passive dampers in a single package, offering a fail-safe damper while decreasing weight and cost. Two hybrid damper designs are proposed in this thesis. The first one operates based on hydraulic damping as a source of passive damping, while the second design employs the eddy current damping effect to provide the passive damping part of the system. It is demonstrated that the introduction of the passive damping can reduce power consumption and weight in an active automotive suspension system. The ultimate objective of this thesis is to employ existing suspension system and damper design knowledge together with new ideas from electromagnetic theories to develop new electromagnetic dampers. At the same time, the development of eddy current dampers, as a potential source for passive damping element in the final hybrid design, is considered and thoroughly studied. For the very first time, the eddy current damping effect is introduced for the automotive suspension applications. The eddy current passive damper, as a stand-alone unit, is designed, modeled, fabricated and successfully tested. The feasibility of using passive eddy current dampers for automotive suspension applications is also studied. The structure of new passive eddy current dampers is straightforward, requiring no external power supply or any other electronic devices. Proposed novel eddy current dampers are oil-free and non-contact, offering high reliability and durability with their simplified design. To achieve the defined goals, analytical modeling, numerical simulations, and lab-based experiments are conducted. A number of experimental test-beds are prepared for various experimental analyses on the fabricated prototypes as well as off-the-shelf dampers. Various prototypes, such as eddy current and electromagnetic dampers, are manufactured, and tested in frequency/time domains for verification of the derived analytical and numerical models, and for proof of concept. In addition, fluid and heat transfer analyses are done during the process of the feasibility study to ensure the durability and practical viability of the proposed hybrid electromagnetic dampers. The presented study is only a small portion of the growing research in this area, and it is hoped that the results obtained here will lead to the realization of a safer and more superior automotive suspension system

New advances in vehicular technology and automotive engineering

An automobile was seen as a simple accessory of luxury in the early years of the past century. Therefore, it was an expensive asset which none of the common citizen could afford. It was necessary to pass a long period and waiting for Henry Ford to establish the first plants with the series fabrication. This new industrial paradigm makes easy to the common American to acquire an automobile, either for running away or for working purposes. Since that date, the automotive research grown exponentially to the levels observed in the actuality. Now, the automobiles are indispensable goods; saying with other words, the automobile is a first necessity article in a wide number of aspects of living: for workers to allow them to move from their homes into their workplaces, for transportation of students, for allowing the domestic women in their home tasks, for ambulances to carry people with decease to the hospitals, for transportation of materials, and so on, the list don’t ends. The new goal pursued by the automotive industry is to provide electric vehicles at low cost and with high reliability. This commitment is justified by the oil’s peak extraction on 50s of this century and also by the necessity to reduce the emissions of CO2 to the atmosphere, as well as to reduce the needs of this even more valuable natural resource. In order to achieve this task and to improve the regular cars based on oil, the automotive industry is even more concerned on doing applied research on technology and on fundamental research of new materials. The most important idea to retain from the previous introduction is to clarify the minds of the potential readers for the direct and indirect penetration of the vehicles and the vehicular industry in the today’s life. In this sequence of ideas, this book tries not only to fill a gap by presenting fresh subjects related to the vehicular technology and to the automotive engineering but to provide guidelines for future research. This book account with valuable contributions from worldwide experts of automotive’s field. The amount and type of contributions were judiciously selected to cover a broad range of research. The reader can found the most recent and cutting-edge sources of information divided in four major groups: electronics (power, communications, optics, batteries, alternators and sensors), mechanics (suspension control, torque converters, deformation analysis, structural monitoring), materials (nanotechnology, nanocomposites, lubrificants, biodegradable, composites, structural monitoring) and manufacturing (supply chains). We are sure that you will enjoy this book and will profit with the technical and scientific contents. To finish, we are thankful to all of those who contributed to this book and who made it possible.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Volume 3 – Conference

We are pleased to present the conference proceedings for the 12th edition of the International Fluid Power Conference (IFK). The IFK is one of the world’s most significant scientific conferences on fluid power control technology and systems. It offers a common platform for the presentation and discussion of trends and innovations to manufacturers, users and scientists. The Chair of Fluid-Mechatronic Systems at the TU Dresden is organizing and hosting the IFK for the sixth time. Supporting hosts are the Fluid Power Association of the German Engineering Federation (VDMA), Dresdner Verein zur Förderung der Fluidtechnik e. V. (DVF) and GWT-TUD GmbH. The organization and the conference location alternates every two years between the Chair of Fluid-Mechatronic Systems in Dresden and the Institute for Fluid Power Drives and Systems in Aachen. The symposium on the first day is dedicated to presentations focused on methodology and fundamental research. The two following conference days offer a wide variety of application and technology orientated papers about the latest state of the art in fluid power. It is this combination that makes the IFK a unique and excellent forum for the exchange of academic research and industrial application experience. A simultaneously ongoing exhibition offers the possibility to get product information and to have individual talks with manufacturers. The theme of the 12th IFK is “Fluid Power – Future Technology”, covering topics that enable the development of 5G-ready, cost-efficient and demand-driven structures, as well as individual decentralized drives. Another topic is the real-time data exchange that allows the application of numerous predictive maintenance strategies, which will significantly increase the availability of fluid power systems and their elements and ensure their improved lifetime performance. We create an atmosphere for casual exchange by offering a vast frame and cultural program. This includes a get-together, a conference banquet, laboratory festivities and some physical activities such as jogging in Dresden’s old town.:Group 8: Pneumatics Group 9 | 11: Mobile applications Group 10: Special domains Group 12: Novel system architectures Group 13 | 15: Actuators & sensors Group 14: Safety & reliabilit