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The optimization and further development of automated driving functions offers great potential to relieve the driver in various driving situations and increase road safety. Simulative testing in particular is an indispensable tool in this process, allowing conclusions to be drawn about the design of automated driving functions at a very early stage of development. In this context, the use of driving simulators provides support so that the driving functions of tomorrow can be experienced in a very safe and reproducible environment. The focus of the acceptance and optimization of automated driving functions is particularly on vehicle lateral control functions. As part of this paper, a test person study was carried out regarding manual vehicle lateral control on the dynamic vehicle road simulator at the Institute of Automotive Engineering.

Investigating human driver behavior enhances the acceptance of the autonomous driving and increases road safety in heterogeneous environments with human-operated and autonomous vehicles. The previously established driver fingerprint model, focuses on the classification of driving style based on CAN bus signals. However, driving styles are inherently complex and influenced by multiple factors, including changing driving environments and driver states. To comprehensively create a driver profile, an in-car measurement system based on the Driver-Driven vehicle-Driving environment (3D) framework is developed. The measurement system records emotional and physiological signals from the driver, including ECG signal and heart rate. A Raspberry Pi camera is utilized on the dashboard to capture the driver's facial expressions and a trained convolutional neural network (CNN) recognizes emotion. To conduct unobtrusive ECG measurements, an ECG sensor is integrated into the steering wheel.

As part of the safety validation of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and automated driving (AD) functions, it is necessary to demonstrate that the frequency at which the system exhibits hazardous behavior (HB) in the field is below an acceptable threshold. This is typically tested by observation of the system behavior in a field operational test (FOT). For situations in which the system under test (SUT) actively intervenes in the dynamic driving behavior of the vehicle, it is assessed whether the SUT exhibits HB. Since the accepted threshold values are generally small, the amount of data required for this strategy is usually very large. This publication proposes an approach to reduce the amount of data required for the evaluation of emergency intervention systems with a state machine based intervention logic by including the time periods between intervention events in the validation process.

Thermo-mechanical fatigue and natural aging due to environmental conditions are difficult to simulate in an actual test with the advanced fiber-reinforced composites, where their fatigue and aging behavior is little understood. Predictive modeling of these processes is challenging. Thermal cyclic tests take a prohibitively long time, although the strain rate effect can be scaled well for accelerating the mechanical stress cycles. Glass fabric composites have important applications in aircraft and spacecraft structures including microwave transparent structures, impact-resistant parts of wing, fuselage deck and many other load bearing structures. Often additional additively manufactured features and coating on glass fabric composites are employed for thermal and anti-corrosion insulations. In this paper we employ a thermo-mechanical fatigue model based accelerated fatigue test and life prediction under hot to cold cycles.

Abstract: Hydraulic systems in aircrafts largely comprise of metallic components with high strength to weight ratios which comprise of 2024 Aluminum and Titanium Ti-6AL-4V. The selection of material is based on low and high pressure applications respectively. For aircraft fluid conveyance products, hydraulic conduits are fabricated by axisymmetric turning to support flow conditions. The hydraulic conduits further carries groves within for placement of elastomeric sealing components. This article presents a systematic study carried out on common loads experienced by fluid carrying conduits and the failure modes induced. The critical failure locations on fluid carrying conduits of 2024-T351 Aluminum was identified, and the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) analysis was carried out to identify the characteristic footprints of failure surfaces and crack initiation. Through this analysis, a load to failure mode correlation is established.

Aerospace structural components grapple with the pressing issue of high-cycle fatigue-induced micro-crack initiation, especially in high-performance alloys like Titanium and super alloys. These materials find critical use in aero-engine components, facing a challenging combination of thermo-mechanical loads and vibrations that lead to gradual dislocations and plastic strain accumulation around stress-concentrated areas. The consequential vibration or overload instances can trigger minor cracks from these plastic zones, often expanding unpredictably before detection during subsequent inspections, posing substantial risks. Effectively addressing this challenge demands the capability to anticipate the consequences of operational life and aging on these components. It necessitates assessing the likelihood of crack initiation due to observed in-flight vibration or overload events.

Abstract AISI H13 hot work tool steel is commonly used for applications such as hot forging and hot extrusion in mechanical working operations that face thermal and mechanical stress fluctuations, leading to premature failures. Cryogenic treatment was applied for AISI H13 steel to improve the surface hardness and thereby fatigue resistance. This work involves failure analysis of H13 steel specimens subjected to cryogenic treatment and gas nitriding. The specimens were heated to 1020°C, oil quenched followed by double tempering at 550°C for 2 h, and subsequently, deep cryogenically treated at −185°C in the cryochamber. Gas nitriding was carried out for 24 h at 500°C for 200 μm case depth in NH3 surroundings. The specimens were subjected to rotating bending fatigue at constant amplitude loading at room temperature.

Understanding left-turn vehicle-pedestrian accident mechanisms is critical for developing accident-prevention systems. This study aims to clarify the features of driver behavior focusing on drivers’ gaze, vehicle speed, and time to collision (TTC) during left turns at intersections on left-hand traffic roads. Herein, experiments with a sedan and light-duty truck (< 7.5 tons GVW) are conducted under four conditions: no pedestrian dummy (No-P), near-side pedestrian dummy (Near-P), far-side pedestrian dummy (Far-P) and near-and-far side pedestrian dummies (NF-P). For NF-P, sedans have a significantly shorter gaze time for left-side mirrors compared with light-duty trucks. The light-duty truck’s average speed at the initial line to the intersection (L1) and pedestrian crossing line (L0) is significantly lower than the sedan’s under No-P, Near-P, and NF-P conditions, without any significant difference between any two conditions.

It is an important factor in electric vehicles to show customers how much they can drive with the energy of the remaining battery. If the remaining mileage is not accurate, electric vehicle drivers will have no choice but have to feel anxious about the mileage. Additionally, the potential customers have range anxiety when they consider Electric Vehicles. If the remaining mileage to drive is wrong, drivers may not be able to get to the charging station and may not be able to drive because the battery runs out. It is important to show the remaining available driving range exactly for drivers. The previous study proposed an advanced model by predicting the remaining mileage based on actual driving data and based on reflecting the pattern of customers who drive regularly. The Bayesian linear regression model was right model in previous study.

Accurately predicting real-world vehicle energy consumption is essential for optimizing vehicle designs, enhancing energy efficiency, and developing effective energy management strategies. This paper presents a data-driven approach that utilizes machine learning techniques and a comprehensive dataset of vehicle parameters and environmental factors to create precise energy consumption prediction models. The methodology involves recording real-world vehicle data using data loggers to extract information from the CAN bus systems for ICE and hybrid electric, as well as hydrogen and battery fuel cell vehicles. Data cleaning and cycle-based analysis are employed to process the dataset for accurate energy consumption prediction. This includes cycle detection and analysis using methods from statistics and signal processing, and then pattern recognition based on these metrics.

Highway safety remains a significant concern, especially in mixed traffic scenarios involving heavy-duty vehicles (HDV) and smaller passenger cars. The vulnerability of HDVs following closely behind smaller cars is evident in incidents involving the lead vehicle, potentially leading to catastrophic rear-end collisions. This paper explores how automatic speed enforcement systems, using speed cameras, can mitigate risks for HDVs in such critical situations. While historical crash data consistently demonstrates the reduction of accidents near speed cameras, this paper goes beyond the conventional notion of crash occurrence reduction. Instead, it investigates the profound impact of driver behavior changes within desired travel speed distribution, especially around speed cameras, and their contribution to the safety of trailing vehicles, with a specific focus on heavy-duty trucks in accident-prone scenarios.

A fully instrumented Tesla Model 3 was used to collect thousands of hours of real-world automated driving data, encompassing both Autopilot and Full Self-Driving modes. This comprehensive dataset included vehicle operational parameters from the data busses, capturing details such as powertrain performance, energy consumption, and the control of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Additionally, interactions with the surrounding traffic were recorded using a perception kit developed in-house equipped with LIDAR and a 360-degree camera system. We collected the data as part of a larger program to assess energy-efficient driving behavior of production connected and automated vehicles. One important aspect of characterizing the test vehicle is predicting its car-following behavior. Using both uncontrolled on-road tests and dedicated tests with a lead car performing set speed maneuvers, we tuned conventional adaptive cruise control (ACC) equations to fit the vehicle’s behavior.

Human driving behavior's inherent variability, randomness, individual differences, and dynamic vehicle-road situations give human-machine cooperative (HMC) driving considerable uncertainty, which affects the applicability and effectiveness of HMC control in complex scenes. To overcome this challenge, we present a novel data-enabled game output regulation approach for HMC driving. Firstly, a global human-vehicle-road (HVR) model is established considering the varied driver's steering characteristic parameters, such as delay time, preview time, and steering gain, as well as the uncertainty of tire cornering stiffness and variable road curvature disturbance. The robust output regulation theory has been employed to ensure the global DVR system's closed-loop stability, asymptotic tracking, and disturbance rejection, even with an unknown driver's internal state. Secondly, an interactive shared steering controller has been designed to provide personalized driving assistance.

Driver's driving style has a great impact on lane changing behavior, especially in scenarios such as freeway on-ramps that contain a strong willingness to change lanes, both in terms of inter-vehicle interactions during lane changing and in terms of the driving styles of the two vehicles. This paper proposes a study on game-theoretic decision-making for lane-changing on highway on-ramps considering driving styles, aiming to facilitate safer and more efficient merging while adequately accounting for driving styles. Firstly, the six features proposed by the EXID dataset of lane-changing vehicles were subjected to Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and the three principal components after dimensionality reduction were extracted, and then clustered according to the principal components by the K-means algorithm. The parameters of lane-changing game payoffs are computed based on the clustering centers under several styles.

The steer-by-wire (SBW) system, an integral component of the drive-by-wire chassis responsible for controlling the lateral motion of a vehicle, plays a pivotal role in enhancing vehicle safety. However, it poses a unique challenge concerning steering wheel return control, primarily due to its fundamental characteristic of severing the mechanical connection between the steering wheel and the turning wheel. This disconnect results in the inability to directly transmit the self-aligning torque to the steering wheel, giving rise to complications in ensuring a seamless return process. In order to realize precise control of steering wheel return, solving the problem of insufficient low-speed return and high-speed return overshoot of the steering wheel of the SBW system, this paper proposes a steering wheel active return control strategy for SBW system based on the backstepping control method.

The flight mechanisms of birds have long inspired efforts to develop bioinspired aerial vehicles. This study presents a computational framework to analyze a flapping mechanism's structural behavior and performance based on the Scotch yoke principle. A three-dimensional CAD model is developed and meshed for finite element analysis in ANSYS. Structural steel is chosen as the material. Static analysis is performed under simulated flapping loads to predict deformation, stresses, fatigue life, and failure points. Preliminary results identify regions of high-stress concentration requiring optimization. Topology optimization is conducted to determine an optimal material layout within defined constraints. Additional shape and compliance optimizations are employed. Comparison of initial and optimized designs significantly reduces maximum deformation and stresses throughout the structure. Fatigue life and safety factors are markedly improved.

Rubber isolators are widely used under random vibrations. In order to predict their fatigue life, a study on the fatigue analysis methodology for rubber isolators is carried out in this paper. Firstly, taking a mount used for isolating air conditioning compressor vibrations as studying example, accelerations versus time of rubber isolator at both sides are acquired for a car under different running conditions. The acceleration in time domain is transformed to frequency domain using the Fourier transform, and the acceleration power spectral density (PSD) is the obtained. Using the PSD as input, fatigue test is carried for the rubber isolator in different temperature and constant humidity conditions. A finite element model of the rubber isolator using ABAQUS is established for estimating fatigue life, and model validity is verified through static characteristic testing. Dynamic responses of the rubber isolator at frequency domain are calculated if a unit load is applied.

Vibration from a mechanical system not only produces unwanted noises annoying to people around, but also runs a risk of fatigue failure that would actually hinder its functionality. There are several forms of vibration depending on the sources of excitation forms. Mechanical systems with rotating components can be subjected to sinusoidal excitation due to the fact the center of mass is not perfectly aligned with the rotating axis. If the rotating speed is strictly ramping up or ramping down, this can create an excitation whose frequency is changing with time in a frequency range corresponding to the speeds swept. Compared with a single sinusoidal excitation, the issue with fatigue at swept sinusoidal excitation, is that as it sweeps through a wide frequency range, some swept frequencies will definitely coincide with the natural frequencies of the system. Certainly, the stress response exactly at the resonant frequency becomes the highest and could account for a lot of fatigue damage.

Lightweight design is a key factor in general engineering design practice, however, it often conflicts with fatigue durability. This paper presents a way for improving the effectiveness of fatigue performance dominated optimization, demonstrated through a case study on suspension brackets for heavy-duty vehicles. This case study is based on random load data collected from fatigue durability tests in proving grounds, and fatigue failures of the heavy-duty vehicle suspension brackets were observed and recorded during the tests. Multi-objective fatigue optimization was introduced by employing multiaxial time-domain fatigue analysis under random loads combined with the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II with archives.

The fatigue prediction model of an air spring based on the crack initiation method is established in this study. Taking a rolling lobe air spring with an aluminum casing as the studying example, a finite element model for analyzing force versus displacement is developed. The static stiffness and dimensional parameters of limit positions are calculated and analyzed. The influence of different modeling methods of air springs bellow are compared and analyzed. Static stiffness measurement of an air spring is conducted, and the calculation results and the measured results of the static stiffness are compared. It is shown that the relative error of the measured stiffness and calculated stiffness is within 1%. The Abaqus post-processing stage is redeveloped in Python language.