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In 2006, there were approximately 23,500 rear-end crashes involving heavy trucks (i.e., gross vehicle weight greater than 4,536 kg). The Enhanced Rear Signaling (ERS) for Heavy Trucks project was developed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to investigate methods to reduce or mitigate those crashes where a heavy truck has been struck from behind by another vehicle. Visual warnings have been shown to be effective, assuming the following driver is looking directly at the warning display or has his/her eyes drawn to it. A visual warning can be placed where it is needed and it can be designed so that its meaning is nearly unambiguous. FMCSA contracted with the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) to investigate potential benefit of additional rear warning-light configurations as rear-end crash countermeasures for heavy trucks.

In this research, the interior noise of a passenger car was measured, and the sound quality metrics including sound pressure level, loudness, sharpness, and roughness were calculated. An artificial neural network was designed to successfully apply on automotive interior noise as well as numerous different fields of technology which aim to overcome difficulties of experimentations and save cost, time and workforce. Sound pressure level, loudness, sharpness, and roughness were estimated by using the artificial neural network designed by using the experiment values. The predicted values and experiment results are compared. The comparison results show that the realized artificial intelligence model is an appropriate model to estimate the sound quality of the automotive interior noise. The reliability value is calculated as 0.9995 by using statistical analysis.

A Location-Aware Adaptive Vehicle Dynamics System (LAAVDS) is developed to assist the driver in maintaining vehicle handling capabilities through various driving maneuvers. An integral part of this System is an Intervention Strategy that uses a novel measure of handling capability, the Performance Margin, to assess the need to intervene. Through this strategy, the driver's commands are modulated to affect desired changes to the Performance Margin in a manner that is minimally intrusive to the driver's control authority. Real-time implementation requires the development of computationally efficient predictive vehicle models. This work develops one means to alter the future vehicle states: modulating the driver's brake commands. This control strategy must be considered in relationship to changes in the throttle commands. Three key elements of this strategy are developed in this work.

A Location-Aware Adaptive Vehicle Dynamics System (LAAVDS) is developed to assist the driver in maintaining vehicle handling capabilities through various driving maneuvers. An Intervention Strategy uses a novel measure of handling capability, the Performance Margin, to assess the need to intervene. The driver's commands are modulated to affect desired changes to the Performance Margin in a manner that is minimally intrusive to the driver's control authority. Real-time implementation requires the development of computationally efficient predictive vehicle models which is the focus of this work. This work develops one means to alter the future vehicle states: modulating the driver's throttle commands. First, changes to the longitudinal force are translated to changes in engine torque based on the current operating state (torque and speed) of the engine.

Ride control of military vehicles is challenging due to varied terrain and mission requirements such as operating weight. Achieving top speeds on rough terrain is typically considered a key performance parameter, which is always constrained by ride discomfort. Many military vehicles using passive suspensions suffer with compromised performance due to single tuning solution. To further stretch the performance domain to achieving higher speeds on rough roads, semi-active suspensions may offer a wide range of damping possibilities under varying conditions. In this paper, various semi-active control strategies are examined, and improvements have been made, particularly, to the acceleration-driven damper (ADD) strategy to make the approach more robust for varying operating conditions. A seven degrees of freedom ride model and a quarter-car model were developed that were excited by a random road process input modeled using an auto-regressive time series model.

Safety and minimal transit time are vital during transportation of essential commodities and passengers, especially in winter conditions. Icy roads are the worst driving conditions with the least available friction, leaving valuable cargo and precious human lives at stake. The study investigates the available friction at the tire-ice interface due to changes in key operational parameters. Experimental analysis of tractive performance of tires on ice was carried out indoor, using the terramechanics rig located at the Advanced Vehicle Dynamics Laboratory (AVDL) at Virginia Tech. The friction-slip ratio curves obtained from indoor testing were inputted into TruckSIM, defining tire behavior for various ice scenarios and then simulating performance of trucks on ice. The shortcomings of simulations in considering the effects of all the operational parameters result in differences between findings of indoor testing and truck performance simulations.

Studying the kinetic and kinematics of the rim-tire combination is very important in full vehicle simulations, as well as for the tire design process. Tire maneuvers are either quasi-static, such as steady-state rolling, or dynamic, such as traction and braking. The rolling of the tire over obstacles and potholes and, more generally, over uneven roads are other examples of tire dynamic maneuvers. In the latter case, tire dynamic models are used for durability assessment of the vehicle chassis, and should be studied using high fidelity simulation models. In this study, a three-dimensional finite element model (FEM) has been developed using the commercial software package ABAQUS. The purpose of this study is to investigate the tire dynamic behavior in multiple case studies in which the transient characteristics are highly involved.

This paper proposes a new method of predicting the sound absorption performance of polymer wool using artificial neural networks (ANN) model. Some important parameters of the proposed model have been adjusted to best fit the non-linear relationship between the input data and output data. What's more, the commonly used multiple non-linear regression model is built to compare with ANN model in this study. Measurements of the sound absorption coefficient of polymer wool based on transfer function method are also performed to determine the sound absorption performance according to GB/T18696. 2-2002 and ISO10534- 2: 1998 (E) standards. It is founded that predictions of the new model are in good agreement with the experiment results.

In this paper, the performance simulation model of a domestic self-dumping truck was established using AVL-Cruise software. Then its accuracy was checked by the power performance and fuel economy tests which were conducted on the proving ground. The power performance of the self-dumping truck was evaluated through standing start acceleration time from 0 to 70km/h, overtaking acceleration time from 60 to 70km/h, maximum speed and maximum gradeability, while the composite fuel consumption per hundred kilometers was taken as an evaluation index of fuel economy. A L9 orthogonal array was applied to investigate the effect of three matching factors including engine, transmission and final drive, which were considered at three levels, on the power performance and fuel economy of the self-dumping truck. Furthermore, the grey relational grade was proposed to assess the multiple performance responses according to the grey relational analysis.

Conventional viscous shock absorbers, in parallel with suspension springs, passively dissipate the excitation energy from road irregularity into heat waste, to reduce the transferred vibration which causes the discomfort of passengers. Energy-harvesting shock absorbers, which have the potential of conversion of kinetic energy into electric power, have been proposed as semi-active suspension to achieve better balance between the energy consumption and suspension performance. Because of the high energy density of the rotary shock absorber, a rotational energy-harvesting shock absorber with mechanical motion rectifier (MMR) is used in this paper. This paper presents the assessment of vehicle dynamic performance with the proposed energy-harvesting shock absorber in braking process. Moreover, a PI controller is proposed to attenuate the negative effect due to the pitch motion.

Vehicle analytical models are often favorable due to describing the physical phenomena associated with vehicle operation following from the principles of physics, with explainable mathematical trends and with extendable modeling to other types of vehicle. However, no experimentally validated analytical model has been developed as yet of diesel engine fuel consumption rate. The present paper demonstrates and validates for trucks and light commercial vehicles an analytical model of supercharged diesel engine fuel consumption rate. The study points out with 99.6% coefficient of determination that the average percentage of deviation of the steady speed-based simulated results from the corresponding field data is 3.7% for all Freeway cycles. The paper also shows with 98% coefficient of determination that the average percentage of deviation of the acceleration-based simulated results from the corresponding field data under negative acceleration is 0.12 %.

To quickly and efficiently match the planetary gearset characteristic parameter of power-spilt hybrid vehicles so that their oil-saving potential can be maximized, this study proposes a parameter matching method that comprehensively considers energy management strategy and driving cycle based on an analysis of vehicle instantaneous efficiency. The method is used to match the planetary characteristic parameter of a power-split hybrid light truck. The relevant conclusions are compared with the influence of various planetary characteristic parameters on fuel consumption obtained through simulation under typical operating conditions. The simulation results show that the influence laws of the various planetary characteristic parameters on vehicle average efficiency are similar to those on fuel consumption. The proposed parameter-matching method based on vehicle efficiency analysis can effectively match the planetary characteristic parameter for power-split hybrid powertrains.

In the face of energy and environmental problems, how to improve the economy of fuel cell vehicles (FCV) effectively and develop intelligent algorithms with higher hydrogen-saving potential are the focus and difficulties of current research. Based on the Toyota Mirai FCV, this paper focuses on the short-term speed prediction algorithm based on the back propagation neural network (BP-NN) and carries out the research on the short-term speed prediction algorithm based on BP-NN. The definition of NN and the basic structure of the neural model are introduced briefly, and the training process of BP-NN is expounded in detail through formula derivation. On this basis, the speed prediction model based on BP-NN is proposed. After that, the parameters of the vehicle speed prediction model, the characteristic parameters of the working condition, and the input and output neurons are selected to determine the topology of the vehicle speed prediction model.

Based on the traditional heavy commercial vehicle, hydraulic hub-motor drive vehicle (HHMDV) is equipped with a hydraulic hub-motor auxiliary drive system, which makes the vehicle change from the rear-wheel drive to the four-wheel drive to improve the traction performance on low-adhesion road. In the typical operating mode of the vehicle, the leakage of the hydraulic system increases because of the oil temperature rising, this makes the control precision of the hydraulic system drop. Therefore, a temperature compensation control strategy for the assist mode is proposed in this paper. According to the principle of flow continuity, considering the loss of the system and the expected wheel speed, the control strategy of multifactor target pump displacement based on temperature compensation is derived. The control strategy is verified by the co-simulation platform of MATLAB/Simulink and AMESim.

The vehicle pull problem is very important to driving safety. Major factors that may cause the pull problem related to tire include variations of geometric dimension (e.g. RPK) and stiffness (e.g. cornering stiffness, aligning stiffness), plysteer and conicity. In previous research, the influencing mechanism of these factors was well studied. But in fact, vehicle pull problem caused by tire is probabilistic. When we assemble four tires onto the car, there could be 384 different assembly arrangements. If there are significant differences among these four tires, there will also be significant differences in the influence of different tire assembly schemes on vehicle pull, which has not been systematically discussed in previous studies. If we want to evaluate the pull performance of all these arrangements by vehicle test, it will be a time consuming process which will take almost 24 working days, along with a high test expense.

Modeling the tire forces and moments (F&M) generation, during combined slip maneuvers, which involves cornering and braking/driving at the same time, is essential for the predictive vehicle performance analysis. In this study, a new semi-empirical method is introduced to estimate the tire combined slip F&M characteristics based on flat belt testing machine measurement data. This model is intended to be used in the virtual tire design optimization process. Therefore, it should include high accuracy, ease of parameterization, and fast computational time. Regression is used to convert measured F&M into pure slip multi-dimensional interpolant functions modified by weighting functions. Accurate combined slip F&M predictions are created by modifying pure slip F&M with empirically determined shape functions. Transient effects are reproduced using standard relaxation length equations. The model calculates F&M at the center of the contact patch.

Taking full advantage of available traffic environment information, making control decisions, and then planning trajectory systematically under structured roads conditions is a critical part of intelligent vehicle. In this article, a lane-changing decision-making method for intelligent vehicle is proposed based on acceleration field. Firstly, an acceleration field related to relative velocity and relative distance was built based on the analysis of braking process, and acceleration was taken as an indicator of safety evaluation. Then, a lane-changing decision method was set up with acceleration field while considering driver’s habits, traffic efficiency and safety. Furthermore, velocity regulation was also introduced in the lane-changing decision method to make it more flexible.

As a novel assist actuator of brake system, the electromechanical brake (EMB) booster has played a significant role in the battery electric vehicles and automatic driving vehicles. It has advantages of independent to vacuum source, active braking, and tuning pedal feeling compared with conventional vacuum brake booster. In this article, a novel EMB booster system is proposed, which is consisted of a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM), a two-stage reduction by gears and ball screw, a servo body, and a reaction disk. Together with the hydraulic control unit, it has two working modes: active braking for automatic drive and passive braking for driver intervention. The structure and work principle of the electric brake booster system is first introduced. The precise control from pedal force to hydraulic pressure is the key for such a power-assisted brake actuator. We translate the control problem of force feedback control to position tracking control.

Vehicle Longitudinal Control (VLC) algorithm is the basis function of automotive Cruise Control system. The main task of VLC is to achieve a longitudinal acceleration tracking controller, performance requirements of which include fast response and high tracking accuracy. At present, many control methods are used to implement vehicle longitudinal control. However, the existing methods are need to be improved because these methods need a high accurate vehicle dynamic model or a number of experiments to calibrate the parameters of controller, which are time consuming and costly. To overcome the difficulties of controller parameters calibration and accurate vehicle dynamic modeling, a vehicle longitudinal control algorithm based on iterative learning control (ILC) is proposed in this paper. The algorithm works based on the information of input and output of the system, so the method does not require a vehicle dynamics model.

The platooning of connected automated vehicles (CAV) possesses the significant potential of reducing energy consumption in the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS). Moreover, with the rapid development of eco-driving technology, vehicle platooning can further enhance the fuel efficiency by optimizing the efficiency of the powertrain. Since road grade is a main factor that affects the energy consumption of a vehicle, the estimation of the road grade with high accuracy is the key factor for a connected vehicle platoon to optimize energy consumption using vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication. Commonly, the road grade is quantified by single consumer grade global positioning system (GPS) with the geodetic height data which is rough and in the meter-level, increasing the difficulty of precisely estimating the road grade.