Experimental Research of Transmissions on Electric Vehicles’ Energy Consumption

The growth of electric vehicles share of total passenger-vehicle sales is evident and is expected to be a very big market segment by 2030. Range of travel and pricing are the most influencing factors that affect their gain in market share. As so, powertrain development is a key technology factor researched by the automotive industry. To explore, among others, how the energy consumption of zero emission vehicles is affected by different transmissions, we developed, built and installed a variety of them on a custom hydrogen fuel cell powered urban vehicle. In this work we present a comparison of the effect, on the energy consumption of the proposed testbed, of a prototype custom build 2-speed gearbox and a single stage transmission. Results presented show a reduction of the overall energy consumption with the use of the 2-speed gearbox, compared to single stage, as well as the effect of gear change speed, related to speed, in energy consumption. Finally, a correlation of experimental results using a custom build CVT is conducted compared to single stage transmission. A comparison to simulation results found in literature is performed for all the transmissions tested on road

Optimized fuzzy scheduling of manufacturing systems

Summarization: An Evolutionary Algorithm (EA) strategy for the optimization of generic Work-In-Process (WIP) scheduling fuzzy controllers is presented. The EA is used to tune a set of fuzzy control modules which are used for distributed and supervisory WIP scheduling. The distributed controllers objective is to control the rate in each production stage so that satisfies the demand for final products while reducing WIP within the system. The EA identifies the parameters for which the fuzzy controller performs optimal with respect to WIP and backlog minimization. The proposed strategy is compared to known heuristically tuned fuzzy control approaches. Simulation results show that the EA strategy improves system’s performance.Παρουσιάστηκε στο: 2nd International Conference on Informatics, Control, Automation and Robotic

Efficient Gear Ratio Selection of a Single-Speed Drivetrain for Improved Electric Vehicle Energy Consumption

The electric vehicle (EV) market has grown over the last few years and even though electric vehicles do not currently possess a high market segment, it is projected that they will do so by 2030. Currently, the electric vehicle industry is looking to resolve the issue of vehicle range, using higher battery capacities and fast charging. Energy consumption is a key issue which heavily effects charging frequency and infrastructure and, therefore, the widespread use of EVs. Although several factors that influence energy consumption of EVs have been identified, a key technology that can make electric vehicles more energy efficient is drivetrain design and development. Based on electric motors’ high torque capabilities, single-speed transmissions are preferred on many light and urban vehicles. In the context of this paper, a prototype electric vehicle is used as a test bed to evaluate energy consumption related to different gear ratio usage on single-speed transmission. For this purpose, real-time data are recorded from experimental road tests and a dynamic model of the vehicle is created and fine-tuned using dedicated software. Dynamic simulations are performed to compare and evaluate different gear ratio set-ups, providing valuable insights into their effect on energy consumption. The correlation of experimental and simulation data is used for the validation of the dynamic model and the evaluation of the results towards the selection of the optimal gear ratio. Based on the aforementioned data, we provide useful information from numerous experimental and simulation results that can be used to evaluate gear ratio effects on electric vehicles’ energy consumption and, at the same time, help to formulate evolving concepts of smart grid and EV integration

A low cost modular robot vehicle design for research and education

Summarization: In this paper the development of a low cost robotic vehicle for research and education is presented. The vehicle was designed considering minimum cost and maximum capabilities. As a base for testing devices and different type of sensors, a commercially available vehicle was used and modified. Two different version of the prototype vehicle were developed accompanied by the proper software that allows the end user to operate the vehicles as an educational or research platform. The functionality of the vehicles was verified after extensive experimentation.Παρουσιάστηκε στο: IEEE 15th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automatio