On line estimation of rolling resistance for intelligent tires

The analysis of a rolling tire is a complex problem of nonlinear elasticity. Although in the technical literature some tire models have been presented, the phenomena involved in the tire rolling are far to be completely understood. In particular, small knowledge comes even from experimental direct observation of the rolling tire, in terms of dynamic contact patch, instantaneous dissipation due to rubber-road friction and hysteretic behavior of the tire structure, and instantaneous grip. This paper illustrates in details a new powerful technology that the research group has developed in the context of the project OPTYRE. A new wireless optical system based on Fiber Bragg Grating strain sensors permits a direct observation of the inner tire stress when rolling in real conditions on the road. From this information, following a new suitably developed tire model, it is possible to identify the instant area of the contact patch, the grip conditions as well the instant dissipation, which is the object of the present work

Energy exchange between nonlinear oscillators: An entropy foundation

In the field of vibrations of complex structures, energy methods like SEA and a series of mid-frequency methods, represent an important resource for computational analysis. All these methods are based in general on a linear formulation of the elastic problem. However, when nonlinearities are present, for example related to clearance or stiffening of joints, these methods, in principle, cannot be applied. This paper, on the basis of a theory presented recently by one of the authors, proposes a foundation of a new energy method able to deal with nonlinearities when studying the energy exchange between subsystems. The idea relies on the concept of a thermodynamic vibroacoustic temperature, that can be directly defined when introducing the entropy of a vibrating structure. The theory is introduced in general, and examples of calculation of the power flow between nonlinear resonators are presented introducing stiffening and clearences for systems with many degrees of freedom

Prototyping a new car semi-active suspension by variational feedback controller

New suspension systems electronically controlled are presented and mounted on board of a real car. The system consists of variable semi-active magneto-rheological dampers that are controlled through an electronic unit that is designed on the basis of a new optimal theoretical control, named VFC-Variational Feedback Controller. The system has been mounted on board of a BMW Series 1 car, and a set of experimental tests have been conducted in real driving conditions. The VFC reveals, because of its design strategy, to be able to enhance simultaneously both the comfort performance as well as the handling capability of the car. Preliminary comparisons with several industrially control methods adopted in the automotive field, among them skyhook and groundhook, show excellent results

A multisensing setup for the intelligent tire monitoring

The present paper offers the chance to experimentally measure, for the first time, the internal tire strain by optical fiber sensors during the tire rolling in real operating conditions. The phenomena that take place during the tire rolling are in fact far from being completely understood. Despite several models available in the technical literature, there is not a correspondently large set of experimental observations. The paper includes the detailed description of the new multi-sensing technology for an ongoing vehicle measurement, which the research group has developed in the context of the project OPTYRE. The experimental apparatus is mainly based on the use of optical fibers with embedded Fiber Bragg Gratings sensors for the acquisition of the circumferential tire strain. Other sensors are also installed on the tire, such as a phonic wheel, a uniaxial accelerometer, and a dynamic temperature sensor. The acquired information is used as input variables in dedicated algorithms that allow the identification of key parameters, such as the dynamic contact patch, instantaneous dissipation and instantaneous grip. The OPTYRE project brings a contribution into the field of experimental grip monitoring of wheeled vehicles, with implications both on passive and active safety characteristics of cars and motorbikes

Processing of logical-physical rules in the control of the autonomous vehicle

Recent advances in intelligent vehicles imply more sophisticated control laws. The standard concept of objective function and models of vehicle and driver represented by differential equations, are not anymore sufficient tools in a future scenario. The capability of reasoning of the machines imposes the use of logic as a fundamental tool to describe requirements of the behavior of the vehicle, and to characterize their response. However, logical statements exhibit a difficulty of integration with the differential physic laws to which the vehicle obeys. There is a clear heterogeneity between mathematics and logic, especially when they must fuse into a single model. The paper proposes an integrated model in which the physics and the logic fuse into a common model, able to generate a meaningful objective function to optimize the behavior through a physical-logic model of the vehicle in the context of control of hybrid dynamical systems. Not negligibly, a logic-statement design helps the autonomous driving to be more acceptable and comprehensible in an insurance and court law context

Telluric-line subtraction in high-accuracy velocimetry: a PCA-based approach

Optical velocimetry has led to the detection of more than 500 planets to date and there is a strong effort to push m/s velocimetry to the near-infrared to access cooler and lighter stars. The presence of numerous telluric absorption lines in the nIR brings an important challenge. As the star's barycentric velocity varies through the year, the telluric absorption lines effectively varies in velocity relative to the star's spectrum by the same amount leading to important systematic RV offsets. We present a novel principal component analysis-based approach for telluric line subtraction and demonstrated its effectiveness with archival HARPS data for GJ436 and {\tau} Ceti, over parts of the R-band that contain strong telluric absorption lines. The main results are: 1) a better RV accuracy with excluding only a few percentage of the domain, 2) better use of the entire spectrum to measure RV and 3) a higher telescope time efficency by using A0V telluric standard from telescope archive.Comment: Presented at SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 201

Comparison of source apportionment approaches and analysis of non-linearity in a real case model application

Abstract. The response of particulate matter (PM) concentrations to emission reductions was analysed by assessing the results obtained with two different source apportionment approaches. The brute force (BF) method source impacts, computed at various emission reduction levels using two chemical transport models (CAMx and FARM), were compared with the contributions obtained with the tagged species (TS) approach (CAMx with the PSAT module). The study focused on the main sources of secondary inorganic aerosol precursors in the Po Valley (northern Italy): agriculture, road transport, industry and residential combustion. The interaction terms between different sources obtained from a factor decomposition analysis were used as indicators of non-linear PM10 concentration responses to individual source emission reductions. Moreover, such interaction terms were analysed in light of the free ammonia / total nitrate gas ratio to determine the relationships between the chemical regime and the non-linearity at selected sites. The impacts of the different sources were not proportional to the emission reductions, and such non-linearity was most relevant for 100 % emission reduction levels compared with smaller reduction levels (50 % and 20 %). Such differences between emission reduction levels were connected to the extent to which they modify the chemical regime in the base case. Non-linearity was mainly associated with agriculture and the interaction of this source with road transport and, to a lesser extent, with industry. Actually, the mass concentrations of PM10 allocated to agriculture by the TS and BF approaches were significantly different when a 100 % emission reduction was applied. However, in many situations the non-linearity in PM10 annual average source allocation was negligible, and the TS and BF approaches provided comparable results. PM mass concentrations attributed to the same sources by TS and BF were highly comparable in terms of spatial patterns and quantification of the source allocation for industry, transport and residential combustion. The conclusions obtained in this study for PM10 are also applicable to PM2.5

Domains 12 to 16 of tropoelastin promote cell attachment and spreading through interactions with glycosaminoglycan and integrins alphaV and alpha5beta1

Elastin is an extracellular matrix component with key structural and biological roles in elastic tissues. Interactions between resident cells and tropoelastin, the monomer of elastin, underpin elastin’s regulation of cellular processes. However, the nature of tropoelastin–cell interactions and the contributions of individual tropoelastin domains to these interactions are only partly elucidated. In this study, we identified and characterized novel cell-adhesive sites in the tropoelastin N-terminal region between domains 12 and 16. We found that this region interacts with aV and a5b1 integrin receptors, which mediate cell attachment and spreading. A peptide sequence from within this region, spanning domains 14 to mid-domain 16, binds heparan sulfate through electrostatic interactions with peptide lysine residues and induces conformational ordering of the peptide. We propose that domains 14–16 direct initial cell attachment through cell-surface heparan sulfate glycosaminoglycans, followed by aV and a5b1 integrin-promoted attachment and spreading on domains 12–16 of tropoelastin. These findings advance our mechanistic understanding of elastin matrix biology, with the potential to enhance tissue regenerative outcomes of elastin-based materials

Gleam: the GLAST Large Area Telescope Simulation Framework

This paper presents the simulation of the GLAST high energy gamma-ray telescope. The simulation package, written in C++, is based on the Geant4 toolkit, and it is integrated into a general framework used to process events. A detailed simulation of the electronic signals inside Silicon detectors has been provided and it is used for the particle tracking, which is handled by a dedicated software. A unique repository for the geometrical description of the detector has been realized using the XML language and a C++ library to access this information has been designed and implemented.Comment: 10 pages, Late