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In recent years the need for testing, calibration and certification of automotive components and powertrains have increased, partly due to the development of new hybrid concepts. At the same time, the development within electrical drives enables more versatile chassis dynamometer setups with better accuracy at a reduced cost. We are developing a new chassis dynamometer laboratory for vehicle research, aiming at extending a recently commercially available dynamometer, building a new laboratory around it, and applying the resulting facility to some new challenging vehicle research problems. The projects are enabled on one hand by collaboration with the dynamometer manufacturer, and on the other hand on collaboration with automotive industry allowing access to relevant internal information and equipment. The test modes of the chassis dynamometer are under development in a joint collaboration with the manufacturer.

To evaluate driver perception of a vehicle powertrain a moving base simulator is a well-established technique. We are connecting the moving base simulator Sim III, at the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute with a newly built chassis dynamometer at Vehicular Systems, Linköping University. The purpose of the effort is to enhance fidelity of moving base simulators by letting drivers experience an actual powertrain. At the same time technicians are given a new tool for evaluating powertrain solutions in a controlled environment. As a first step the vehicle model from the chassis dynamometer system has been implemented in Sim III. Interfacing software was developed and an optical fiber covering the physical distance of 500 m between the facilities is used to connect the systems. Further, a pedal robot has been developed that uses two linear actuators pressing the accelerator and brake pedals.