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Current developments in automotive industry such as hybrid powertrains and the continuously increasing demands on emission control systems, are pushing complexity still further. Validation of such systems lead to a huge amount of test cases and hence extreme testing efforts on the road. At the same time the pressure to reduce costs and minimize development time is creating challenging boundaries on development teams. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to utilize testing and validation prototypes in the most efficient way. It is necessary to apply high levels of instrumentation and collect as much data as possible. And a streamlined data pipeline allows the fleet managers to get new insights from the raw data and control the validation vehicles as well as the development team in the most efficient way. In this paper we will demonstrate a data-driven approach for validation testing.

This paper describes the Thermal Balance test that has been performed on EuTEF (European Technology Exposure Facility) platform, to be flown in October 2007 as an attached payload of Columbus module to the ISS. The thermal control system of EuTEF is based on a passive concept, with several different payloads being each one a self-standing technological experiment, with a centralized power supply and data handling. Each instrument has its own TCS, independent one another: they are individually insulated by MLI. The test has been performed with EuTEF Flight Model (FM) on the Passive Attach System to have representative thermal flight-like interfaces. Simulation of close-to-real flight environmental heat loads have been accomplished in a vacuum chamber (at INTESPACE, Toulouse-F) by means of a solar beam and a spin table suitably oriented to simulate a critical identified orbit, among all the possible on the ISS.

The satellite AGILE (Astro-rivelatore Gamma a Immagini LEggero, “Light Gamma Ray Imaging Detector”) is a promising instrument for near-earth space research of the Italian Space(ASI) during the years 2007-2009: its scientific instrumentation has optimal imaging capabilities in both the gamma-ray energy range (30 MeV - 30 GeV) and hard X-ray range (15 - 45 keV). It will study the phenomena occurring in the high energy spectrum, such as: Active Galactic Nuclei, Gamma Ray Bursts, Gamma-ray Galactic Diffuse Emission, and more. The satellite was designed and built in years 2004-2006; this paper describes the design of the thermal control system of the satellite, with a survey of the flight prediction. As an example of uncertainty reduction, MLI performance characterization by test was done in an early phase of the AIV phase (i.e. well before the system level test), to meet stringent payload requirements in terms of temperature gradients and temperature stability.

In the last years automotive industry has shown a growing interest in exploring the field of vehicle dynamic control, improving handling performances and safety of the vehicle, and actuating devices able to optimize the driving torque distribution to the wheels. These techniques are defined as torque vectoring. The potentiality of these systems relies on the strong coupling between longitudinal and lateral vehicle dynamics established by tires and powertrain. Due to this fact the detailed (and correct) simulation of the dynamic behaviour of the driveline has a strong importance in the development of these control systems, which aim is to optimize the contact forces distribution. The aim of this work is to build an integrated vehicle and powertrain model in order to provide a proper instrument to be used in the development of such systems, able to reproduce the dynamic interaction between vehicle and driveline and its effects on the handling performances.

The future Mars rover thermal design presents a unique challenge to the thermal engineers: the need arises for a thermal control system able to keep rover elements within their operational and non-operational temperature ranges in the face of extreme environmental conditions, characterized by broad day/night temperature excursions, cold biased conditions and long periods in standby modes induced by dust storms. A thermal device is needed, which allows the removal of excess heat from dissipating units during the Martian day and to keep them above their minimum operational/survival temperature during night. Moreover the scientific goals introduce strict requirements in terms of allowable internal components temperature ranges and thermal stability, which the candidate device has to fulfill against wide-ranging power dissipation modes. Such a device has been called Variable Thermal Conductance Device, or ‘Heat Switch’.

A Heat Switch has been developed, namely a device able to autonomously regulate its own thermal conductance in function of the equipment dissipation and environmental heat sink conditions. It is based on a Loop Heat Pipe (LHP) technology, with a passive bypass valve which diverts the flow to the Compensation Chamber when needed for regulation purposes. The target application is the potential use on a Mars Rover thermal control system. The paper recalls the Heat Switch design, and reports the results of an extensive test campaign on the ground demonstrator. The performance of the device was found extremely satisfying, and often exceeded the system requirements.

Tire-road interaction is one of the main concerns in the design of control strategies for active/semi-active differentials oriented to improve handling performances of a vehicle. In particular, the knowledge of the friction coefficient at the tire-road interface is crucial for achieving the best performance in any working condition. State observers and estimators have been developed at the purpose, based on the measurements traditionally carried out on board vehicle (steer angle, lateral acceleration, yaw rate, wheels speed). However, until today, the problem of tire-road friction coefficient estimation (and especially of its maximum value) has not completely been solved. Thus, active control systems developed so far rely on a driver manual selection of the road adherence condition (anyway characterized by a rough and imprecise quality) or on a conservative tuning of the control logic in order to ensure vehicle safety among different tire-road friction coefficients.

Future demands regarding emissions, fuel consumption and driveability lead to complex engine and power train control systems. The calibration of the increasing number of free parameters in the ECU's contradicts the demand for reduced time in the power train development cycle. This paper will focus on the automatic, unmanned closed loop optimization of driveability quality on a high dynamic engine test bed. The collaboration of three advanced methods will be presented: Objective real time driveability assessment, to predict the expected feelings of the buyers of the car Automatic computer assisted variation of ECU parameters on the basis of statistical methods like design of experiments (DoE). Thus data are measured in an automated process allowing an optimization based on models (e.g. neural networks).

Active controls for braking dynamics are widely investigated in literature [1]-[8] as one of the way to improve vehicle safety and avoid collisions. Active systems commonly mounted on passenger cars like ABS/EBD, have achieved a high level of robustness towards possible changes in the tires' characteristics due to multiple causes such as: under-inflation, wear and also replacement of tires with new ones different from the first equipment series. Although these electronic control systems have been designed to be robust and no case-sensitive to such variations in tire conditions, a further improvement of their performance could be achieved by means of a continuous adaptive control.

In order to meet current and future emission and CO2 targets, an efficient vehicle thermal management system is one of the key factors in conventional as well as in electrified powertrains. Furthermore the increasing number of vehicle configurations leads to a high variability and degrees of freedom in possible system designs and the control thereof, which can only be handled by a comprehensive tool chain of vehicle system simulation and a generic control system architecture. The required model must comprise all relevant systems of the vehicle (control functionality, cooling system, lubrication system, engine, drive train, HV components etc.). For proper prediction with respect to energy consumption all interactions and interdependencies of those systems have to be taken into consideration, i.e. all energy fluxes (mechanical, hydraulically, electrical, thermal) have to be exchanged among the system boundaries accordingly.

The correct information about legal demands of the On-Board-Diagnostic (OBD) system in a vehicle project is required throughout the entire development process. Usually, the main obstacle in succeeding is to provide the company's expertise of some few experts for all employees who work in OBD related projects. The paper describes the AVL solution for knowledge management and tool supported control system design and calibration: OBD System Development Database. The software enables the user to access the regulatory requirements for a specific application and legislation from past, present and future (proposed rule-making) point of view. Information concerning already available and stored monitoring concepts is linked to the requirements in order to re-use potentially suitable concepts and to enable an efficient knowledge exchange within the company.

Most stringent emission legislations have been implemented in all major markets to improve air quality across the past years. This effects the product cost of the vehicles which is considered being critical and needs to be minimized. India suffers from bad air quality and countermeasures have been defined. One being the implementation of similar emission standards than EU VI. By doing so, India takes a large step going from the currently effective BS IV directly to BS VI. Emission reduction is currently mainly handled by the usage of EGR, thus no engine aftertreatment system has been applied. BS VI will require an aftertreatment (EAS) concept with several catalysts and corresponding control system. India is a very cost sensitive market and a carry over of solutions from the EU needs to be evaluated carefully and new approaches need to be found.

Given the growing interest in improving the efficiency of the bus fleet in public transportation systems, this paper presents an analysis of the energy consumption of a battery electric bus. During the experimental campaign, a battery electric bus was loaded using sand payloads to simulate the passenger load on board and followed another bus during regular service. Data related to the energy consumed by various bus utilities were published on the vehicle’s CAN network using the FMS standard and sampled at a frequency of 1 Hz. The collected experimental data were initially analyzed on a daily basis and then on a per-route basis. The results reveal the breakdown of energy consumption among various utilities over the course of each day of the experiment, highlighting those responsible for the highest energy consumption.