System-of-Systems Considerations in the Notional Development of a Metropolitan Aerial Transportation System

There are substantial future challenges related to sustaining and improving efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly transportation options for urban regions. Over the past several decades there has been a worldwide trend towards increasing urbanization of society. Accompanying this urbanization are increasing surface transportation infrastructure costs and, despite public infrastructure investments, increasing surface transportation "gridlock." In addition to this global urbanization trend, there has been a substantial increase in concern regarding energy sustainability, fossil fuel emissions, and the potential implications of global climate change. A recently completed study investigated the feasibility of an aviation solution for future urban transportation (refs. 1, 2). Such an aerial transportation system could ideally address some of the above noted concerns related to urbanization, transportation gridlock, and fossil fuel emissions (ref. 3). A metro/regional aerial transportation system could also provide enhanced transportation flexibility to accommodate extraordinary events such as surface (rail/road) transportation network disruptions and emergency/disaster relief responses

Modeling of a Hybrid-Electric System and Design of Control Laws for Hybrid-Electric Urban Air Mobility Power Plants

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) is an emerging market and technology in the aerospace industry. These systems are being developed to overcome traffic congestion. The current designs make use of Distributed Electric Propulsion (DEP): either fully electric or hybrid electric. The hybrid engine system consists of two power sources: prime movers, such as turbine engines, and batteries. The hybrid systems offer higher range and endurance compared with the existing fully electric systems. Hybrid-electric power generation systems for AAM have different mission requirements when compared to systems used in automobiles. Therefore, there is a particular need to model hybrid-electric systems and the development of control logic specifically for AAM aircraft. This thesis focusses on the modeling and design of control logic for hybrid-electric power plants for Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) applications. The developed model can assist in designing and optimizing the system as well as supporting the system architecture. These models can also help the testing and integration of hardware and software of systems and sub-systems, also known as software-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop simulations. A state-space representation of the hybrid-electric system is created and validated with experimental results to facilitate the use of modern controls methods. A control law for the hybrid-electric system was also developed to meet the AAM aircraft mission requirement of generating the required electrical power and maintaining the State of Charge (SOC) of the batteries

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

VEHICLE-INFRASTRUCTURE INTEGRATION (VII) ENABLED PLUG-IN HYBRID ELECTRIC VEHICLES (PHEVS) FOR TRAFFIC AND ENERGY MANAGEMENT

Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) program (also known as IntelliDrive) has proven the potential to improve transportation conditions by enabling the communication between vehicles and infrastructure, which provides a wide range of applications in transportation safety and mobility. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) that utilize both electrical and gasoline energy are a commercially viable technology with potential to contribute to both sustainable development and environmental conservation through increased fuel economy and reduced emissions. Considering positive potentials of PHEVs and VII in ITS, a framework that integrates PHEVs with VII technology was created in this research utilizing vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications for transmitting real time and predicted traffic information. This framework aims to adjust the vehicle speed at each time interval on its driving mission and dynamically optimize the total energy consumption during the trip. Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy (ECMS) was utilized as the control strategy of PHEVs energy management for minimization of the equivalent energy. It was found that VII traffic information has the capability to benefit energy management, as presented in this thesis, while supporting the broader national transportation goals of an active transportation system where drivers, vehicles and infrastructure are integrated in a real time fashion to improve overall traffic conditions

Hybrid vehicle assessment. Phase 1: Petroleum savings analysis

The results of a comprehensive analysis of near term electric hybrid vehicles are presented, with emphasis on their potential to save significant amounts of petroleum on a national scale in the 1990s. Performance requirements and expected annual usage patterns of these vehicles are first modeled. The projected U.S. fleet composition is estimated, and conceptual hybrid vehicle designs are conceived and analyzed for petroleum use when driven in the expected annual patterns. These petroleum consumption estimates are then compared to similar estimates for projected 1990 conventional vehicles having the same performance and driven in the same patterns. Results are presented in the form of three utility functions and comparisons of sevral conceptual designs are made. The Hybrid Vehicle (HV) design and assessment techniques are discussed and a general method is explained for selecting the optimum energy management strategy for any vehicle mission battery combination. Conclusions and recommendations are presented, and development recommendations are identified

12th EASN International Conference on "Innovation in Aviation & Space for opening New Horizons"

Epoxy resins show a combination of thermal stability, good mechanical performance, and durability, which make these materials suitable for many applications in the Aerospace industry. Different types of curing agents can be utilized for curing epoxy systems. The use of aliphatic amines as curing agent is preferable over the toxic aromatic ones, though their incorporation increases the flammability of the resin. Recently, we have developed different hybrid strategies, where the sol-gel technique has been exploited in combination with two DOPO-based flame retardants and other synergists or the use of humic acid and ammonium polyphosphate to achieve non-dripping V-0 classification in UL 94 vertical flame spread tests, with low phosphorous loadings (e.g., 1-2 wt%). These strategies improved the flame retardancy of the epoxy matrix, without any detrimental impact on the mechanical and thermal properties of the composites. Finally, the formation of a hybrid silica-epoxy network accounted for the establishment of tailored interphases, due to a better dispersion of more polar additives in the hydrophobic resin

Impact of Intelligent Transportation Systems on Parallel Hybrid Electric Heavy Duty Vehicles

A hybrid electric vehicle uses multiple sources of energy that can be independently or all together used to propel the wheels. In the presented work, the vehicle propulsion controller (VPC) for a parallel heavy duty hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) model has been modified to manage the alternative power source in advance based on the forthcoming traffic information. The goal is to prepare the powertrain for the next power event by making more energy storage capacity to capture free energy via regenerative braking or store more energy for expected need. The method of preparation will be by managing the battery state of charge (SOC), which is a metal hydride battery for this study, to take advantage of opportunistic regeneration. Autonomie software was used to simulate parallel HEV models.;The results revealed that the proposed looking-ahead control strategy for a class 8 parallel hybrid heavy duty vehicle with an engine power of 410 kW had a substantial contribution in preparing the system for forthcoming power demand. The looking-ahead strategy employed in this study improved fuel economy from 0.5% on flat terrain to about 3% on mountain terrain. Moreover, a looking-ahead strategy can contribute significantly to maintaining adequate power for the vehicle on different terrain types. The engine power can be downsized (with looking-ahead strategy) therefore improving fuel economy up to 13% while maintaining adequate power over different terrain types. The battery energy capacity can be downsized (with looking-ahead strategy) by half while maintaining nearly the same benefits (i.e. fuel economy and adequate power) compared to the hybridization system without looking-ahead strategy. Since different routes types (i.e. flat, hilly and mountain terrains) were used to investigate the impact of the looking-ahead strategy on heavy duty parallel HEV, these results can generally be applied to many terrain and traffic situations

Power management optimization of hybrid power systems in electric ferries

The integration of more-electric technologies, such as energy storage systems (ESSs) and electric propulsion, has gained attention in recent years as a promising approach to reduce fuel consumption and emissions in the maritime industry. In this context, hybrid power systems (HPSs) with direct current (DC) distribution are currently gaining a commendable interest in research and industrial applications. This paper examines the impact of using HPS with DC distribution and a battery energy storage system (BESS) over a conventional AC power system for short haul roll-on/roll-off (RORO) ferries. An electric ferry with a HPS is modeled in this study and the power management system is simulated using the Matlab/Simulink software. The result is validated using measured load profile of a ferry. The performance of the DC HPS is compared with the conventional AC system based on fuel consumption and emission reductions. An approach to estimate the fuel consumption of the diesel engine through calculation of specific fuel oil consumption (SFOC) is also presented. This study uses two optimization techniques: a classical power management method namely Rule-Based control (RB) and a meta-heuristic power management method known as Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO) to optimally manage the power sharing of the proposed HPS. Fuel consumption and emission indicators are also used to assess the performance of the two power management methods. The simulation results show that the HPS provides a 2.91% and 7.48% fuel consumption reduction using RB method and GWO method respectively. It is apparent from the result that the HPS has more fuel savings while running the diesel generator sets (DGs) at higher operational efficiency. It is interesting that the proposed HPS using both power management methods provided a 100% emission reduction at berth. Finally, it was found that using a meta-heuristic optimization algorithm provides better fuel and emission reductions than a classical method

Modelling and Co-simulation of hybrid vehicles: A thermal management perspective

Thermal management plays a vital role in the modern vehicle design and delivery. It enables the thermal analysis and optimisation of energy distribution to improve performance, increase efficiency and reduce emissions. Due to the complexity of the overall vehicle system, it is necessary to use a combination of simulation tools. Therefore, the co-simulation is at the centre of the design and analysis of electric, hybrid vehicles. For a holistic vehicle simulation to be realized, the simulation environment must support many physical domains. In this paper, a wide variety of system designs for modelling vehicle thermal performance are reviewed, providing an overview of necessary considerations for developing a cost-effective tool to evaluate fuel consumption and emissions across dynamic drive-cycles and under a range of weather conditions. The virtual models reviewed in this paper provide tools for component-level, system-level and control design, analysis, and optimisation. This paper concerns the latest techniques for an overall vehicle model development and software integration of multi-domain subsystems from a thermal management view and discusses the challenges presented for future studies