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This paper presents the research related to the self-driving system that has been actively carried out recently. Previous studies have been limited to ensure the path following performance in linear and steady state-alike handling region with small lateral acceleration. However, in the high speed driving, the vehicle cornering response is extended to nonlinear region where tire grips are saturated. This requires a technology to create the driving path for minimum time maneuvering while grasping the tire grip limits of the vehicle in real time. The entire controller consists of three stages-hierarchy: The target motion is determined in the supervisor phase, and the target force to follow the target behavior is calculated in the upper stage controller. Finally, the lower stage controller calculates the actuator phase control input corresponding to the target force.

This paper investigates the sensitivity of stiffness of front and rear suspension systems on the structure-borne road noise inside a vehicle cabin. A flexible multi-body dynamics based approach is used to simulate the structural dynamics of suspension systems including rubber bushings, suspension arms, a subframe and a twist beam. This approach can accurately predict the force transfer to the trimmed body at each suspension mounting point up to a frequency range of 0 to 300 Hz, which is validated against a force measurement test using a suspension test rig. Predicted forces at each mounting point are converted to road noise inside the cabin by multiplying it with experimentally obtained noise transfer functions. All of the suspension components are modeled as flexible bodies using Craig-Bampton component mode synthesis method.

The purpose of this study is to develop a dynamic model that can accurately predict the motion of the door handle and counterweight during side impact crash tests. The door locking system, mainly composed of the door outside handle and door latch, is theoretically modeled, and it is assumed that the door outer panel can rotate and translate in all three directions during a side impact crash. Additionally, the numerical results are compared with real crash video footage, and satisfactory qualitative agreement is found. Finally, the simplified test rig that efficiently reflects the real crash test is introduced, and its operation is analyzed.

As automotive technology has been developed, gear whine has become a prominent contributor for cabin noise as the masking has been decreased. Whine is not the loudest source, but it is of high tonal noise which is often highly unpleasant. The gear noise originates at gear mesh. Transmission Error acts as an excitation source and these vibrations pass through gears, shafts and bearings to the housing which vibrates to produce noise on surrounding air. As microgeometry optimization target to reduce the fundamental excitation source of the noise, it has been favored method to tackle gear whine noise, especially for manual transmission. However, practicality of microgeometry optimization for the planetary gear system has been still in question, because of complex system structure and interaction among multi mesh gear sets make it hard to predict and even harder to improve. In this paper, successful case of whine noise improvement by microgeometry is presented.

This paper describes an automated path following system using vision sensor. Lateral control law for path following is especially underlined which is developed by using the backstepping control design methodology. To establish the proposed control system, the lateral offset to the reference path, the heading angle of vehicle relative to tangent line to the path, and path curvature are required. Those inputs to the controller have been calculated through Kalman filter which is frequently adopted for the purpose. The lane mark detection has been achieved in an ECU (Electric Control Unit) platform with vision sensor. The yaw rate and side-slip angle also needed in the controller are estimated by Kalman estimator. To show the performance of the proposed controller under different speeds, experiment has been conducted on a proving ground having straight and curve sections with the curvature of about 260m.

This paper mainly focuses on a lateral control law for pre-given path following which is developed by using the backstepping control design methodology. The position information of the vehicle is obtained by Real Time Kinematic DGPS, and the yaw rate and side-slip angle used in controller are estimated by Kalman estimator. To show the performance of the proposed controller under different speed and various path curvature conditions, the results are given through experiments which are executed on proving ground especially designed for high maneuvering test of which minimum radius of curvature is about 60 m.

This paper describes an approach to simulate spindle coupled full vehicle durability tests for the purpose of completing virtual durability evaluations on components and full vehicles before a prototype is available. The reproduction of measured spindle loads was achieved on a virtual model of a passenger car coupled to a 4 Degree of Freedom (DOF) and 6 DOF spindle coupled test system. The tools and process improvements developed here will aid both test and analysis engineers in working closer together in solving their durability problems. By using Remote Parameter Control® (RPC®) technology in the virtual world, analysts have a new method to understand the virtual model by reproducing field-measured or generic road predicted signals for a variety of road surfaces. With newly created test rig models and a user friendly RPC™ iteration process, virtual testing that accurately replicates laboratory tests are now a reality.

With the advent of cars with computerized engines, drivers sometimes suffer discomfort with “check engine” light problem, and as a result, insist on increasing levels of reliability in their cars. Hence, reliability of the wiring harness has become a very important automotive design characteristic. On one hand, the more secure an engine mounting system is, the more stable the engine wiring harness is. In order to enhance their durability, car manufacturers need to perform many validation tests during the development phase which involves a lot of time and cost. In this study, a newly developed lab-simulation test is proposed to qualify the design of engine mounting and engine wiring early in the design cycle and reduce time and expense. The lab-simulation test has contributed to a significant cost and time reduction and has shown good correlation to the original proving ground test.

Accelerated simulation of vehicle corrosion in a controlled environment not only involves large chambers for actual vehicle tests, but also requires careful consideration of interactions between various parameters given a short time period within which the test is bounded. A new corrosion durability test mode reproducing various field conditions using salt spray, climatic, sunlight simulation and cold chambers has been developed. Verification of the test mode is carried out using four actual vehicle corrosion tests correlated against used cars of Nort h America and Northern Europe. The process of new corrosion test mode is discussed along with the characteristics of the test chambers.

The purpose of this paper is an attempt to make a good compromise between ride and handling without deteriorating each other. Compromise between ride and handling has been a problem for suspension designer. Attempts are made by varing suspension parameters. Effects of each combination has been tested with basic ride and handling test methods. For ride to maintain a constant natural frequency through all load range was a primary target. And for handling to get adequate roll angle at 0.5g lateral acceleration was a target. In conclusion, combination of polyurethane suspension bump and normal rear spring was proved to be able to provide the best compromise, low cost, light weight and better performance. This also showed polyurethane bumper could carry out spring aids successfully.