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"Spotlight on Design" features video interviews and case study segments, focusing on the latest technology breakthroughs. Viewers are virtually taken to labs and research centers to learn how design engineers are enhancing product performance/reliability, reducing cost, improving quality, safety or environmental impact, and achieving regulatory compliance. Fuel efficiency, or simply put, how to get more mileage out of the same amount of fuel has become one of the main goals to be achieved by new automotive technologies in the future, thanks in part to new government regulations. In the episode "Fuel Efficiency: Racing toward CAFE 2025" (21:24) AVL engineers show simulation and testing being used to design more fuel efficient vehicles, including the equipment that actually analyzes fuel economy.

"Spotlight on Design: Insight" features an in-depth look at the latest technology breakthroughs impacting mobility. Viewers are virtually taken to labs and research centers to learn how design engineers are enhancing product performance/reliability, reducing cost, improving quality, safety or environmental impact, and achieving regulatory compliance. As global concerns about the negative consequences of greenhouse gases on the environment increase, regulatory agencies around the world are taking serious steps to address the issue of tailpipe emissions In the episode "Fuel Efficiency: Fuel Economy Testing" (12:01), engineers at the EPA’s National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory demonstrate how different vehicles are tested for emissions, and AVL’s technical team shows how accurate tailpipe emissions can be measured and reported.

Auto manufacturers have known and surveys confirm that consumers require short payback periods (2-4 years) for investments in fuel economy. Using societal discount rates, engineering-economic generally find substantial potential to increase fuel economy, cost-effectively. This phenomenon, often referred to as the ?energy paradox?, has been observed in nearly all consumers? choices of energy-using durable goods. Loss aversion, perhaps the most well established theory of behavioral economics, provides a compelling explanation. Engineering economic analyses generally overlook the fact that consumers? investments in fuel economy are not sure things but rather risky bets. Future energy prices, real world on-road fuel economy, and many other factors are uncertain. Loss aversion describes a fundamental human tendency to exaggerate the potential for loss relative to gain when faced with a risky bet. It provides a sufficient explanation for consumers?

The presentation describes the aerodynamic development and optimization process of the three different new models of the Audi A6/A7 family. The body types of these three models represent the three classic aerodynamic body types squareback, notchback and fastback. A short introduction of the flow structures of these different body types is given and their effect on the vehicle aerodynamic is described. In order to achieve good aerodynamic performance, the integration into the development process of the knowledge about these flow phenomena and the breakdown of the aerodynamic resistance into its components friction- and pressure drag as well as the induced drag is very important. The presentation illustrates how this is realized within the aerodynamic development process at Audi. It describes how the results of CFD simulations are combined with wind tunnel measurements and how the information about the different flow phenomena were used to achieve an aerodynamic improvement.

An electrically-driven, intelligent brake unit has been developed, to be combined with a regenerative braking system in electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) which went into production in 2010 - 11. The brake pedal force is assisted by an electrically driven motor, without using vacuum pressure, unlike conventional braking systems. The actuator can be implemented to coordinate with a regenerative braking system, and to have adjustable pedal feel through use of a unique pressure-generating mechanism and a pedal-force compensator. In this paper, we describe features of the actuator mechanism and performance test results Presenter Yukio Ohtani, Hitachi Automotive Systems

When vehicles share certain information wirelessly via Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC), they enable a new layer of electronic vehicle safety that, when needed, can generate warnings to drivers and even initiate automatic preventive actions. Vehicle location and velocity provided by Global Navigation Systems (GNSS), including GPS, are key in allowing vehicle path estimation. GNSS is effective in accurately determining a vehicle's location coordinates in most driving environments, but its performance suffers from obstructions in dense urban environments. To combat this, augmentations to GNSS are being contemplated and tested. This testing has been typically done using a reference GNSS system complimented by expensive military-grade inertial sensors, which can still fail to provide adequate reference performance in certain environments.

Moir� method is useful to measure the shape and the whole-field distributions of displacement and strain of structures. There are many kinds of moir� methods such as geometric moir� method, sampling moir� method, Fourier transform moir� method, moir� interferometry, shadow moir� method and moir� topography. Grating method analyzing directly deformation of a grating without any moir� fringe pattern is considered as an extended technique of moire method. Phase analysis of the moire fringe patterns and the grating patterns provides accurate measurements of shapes or displacement and strain distributions. Some applications of these moir� methods and grating methods to dynamic shape and strain distribution measurements of a rotating tire, sub-millimeter displacement measurements from long distance for landslide prediction, real-time shape measurements with micro-meter order accuracy, etc. are shown. Presenter Yoshiharu Morimoto, Moire Institute Inc.

Nissan Motor Company has recently released the �Nissan Green Program 2016� which is a six-year action plan embodying the company�s environmental philosophy: Symbiosis of People, Vehicles and Nature. One of the key activities of this Program is the successful penetration of Zero-Emission Vehicles into the market which includes electric vehicle (EV) cumulative sales of 1.5M units with our Alliance partner Renault, introduction of a fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) into the market, taking a global leadership in supplying batteries for electric drive and creating zero-emission societies. This presentation will highlight some of these key activities. Presenter Kev Adjemian, Nissan Technical Center NA

Learn how the U.S. Department of Energy's Clean Cities Program can help with the deployment of alternative fuel and advanced technology school buses. Presenter Mark S. Smith, US Department of Energy

Propane autogas, the world?s third most-used engine fuel, powers vehicles, transit buses, and now school buses. Blue Bird has recently launched the Next Generation Vision type C school bus, powered by a ROUSH CleanTech liquid propane autogas fuel system and a Ford 6.8L V10 engine. The bus reduces operating costs by up to 40%, greenhouse gas emissions by up to 24%, and maintains the factory horsepower, torque, and towing capacity ratings. Learn about how school districts are saving over $.30 / mile using this clean, domestically-produced fuel. Presenter Brian Carney, Roush CleanTech.

Research in plug in vehicles (PHEV and BEV) has of course been ongoing for decades, however now that these vehicles are finally being produced for a mass market an intense focus over the last few years has been given to proper evaluation techniques and standard information to effectively convey efficiency information to potential consumers. The first challenge is the development of suitable test procedures. Thanks to many contributions from SAE members, these test procedures have been developed for PHEVs (SAE J1711 now available) and are under development for BEVs (SAE J1634 available later this year). A bigger challenge, however, is taking the outputs of these test results and dealing with the issue of off-board electrical energy consumption in the context of decades-long consumer understanding of MPG as the chief figure of merit for vehicle efficiency.

ECOtality North America, in partnership with the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Nissan North America, General Motors, and over 40 government, electric utility, and private organizations, has launched a large-scale demonstration of electric vehicle charging infrastructure. This demonstration, called The EV Project, will deploy more than 15,000 level 2 and DC fast chargers in private residence, commercial, and public locations in seven market areas in Arizona, California, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Washington state, and Washington, D.C. The EV Project will also include a total of 5,700 Nissan Leaf battery electric vehicles and 2,600 Chevrolet Volt extended range electric vehicles, operated by consumers and fleets in each of the market areas. This demonstration, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy�s (DOE) Vehicle Technologies Program, represents the largest ever deployment of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure.

There are many macro drivers that are creating opportunities for transportation electrification. They include the environment, dependence on foreign oil, national security, battery technology and government incentives to name a few. In light of this growing momentum consumers will have choices to where they can charge ? at home, workplace or publicly. Electrical vehicle supply equipment will drive value throughout the supply chain ? installer, building owner, automaker, suppliers, utilities and consumers. Market acceptance will occur when consumer?s needs and wants are met. To meet these needs access to products through multiple channels will be required. Presenter Manoj Karwa, Leviton Manufacturing Co. Inc.

Career development is no longer something you focus on in your twenties and are set for life, it is ongoing and constant. New technologies, globalization and the world-wide competition for jobs demand that we continue to grow our skills and knowledge throughout our life. This session will provide you with tools to help you meet this demand as an engineering professional. Participants will create a personal mission statement and set career goals, identify the best way to research new opportunities and build their network while also crafting a personal brand with consistent messaging. Organizer Martha Schanno, SAE International Panelist Caryn Mateer, Transformational Leaders Intl. Kathleen Riley, Transformational Leaders Intl.

Optical fiber has begun replacing copper in avionic networks. So far, however, it has been mainly restricted to non-critical applications (video transmission to the flight deck, IFE?). In order to take advantage of the high-bandwidth, low weight, no EMI properties of optical fibers in all data transmission networks, it will be necessary to improve the testing. One part of the puzzle, which is still missing, is the self-test button: the possibility to check the network and detect potential failures before they occur. The typical testing tool of a technician involved in optical fiber cables is the ?light source ? optical power meter? pair. With this tool, one can measure the insertion loss of the fiber link. A second important parameter, the return loss at each optical connector, is not analysed. In addition, this is only a global measurement, which does not allow the detection of possible weak points.

Edgewater Computer Systems Inc. product RTEdge Platform 1.2 is a software toolset supporting proof based engineering, implementation and deployment of software components, built using the RTEdge AADL Microkernel modeling subset. This is a small subset of the AADL component model and execution semantics, covering threads and thread-groups communicating solely through asynchronous event ports and through explicitly shared data ports. Threads behavior is expressed as state machines and dispatch run time semantics is encoded in a Run-time Executive, enforcing pre-emptive priority dispatch based on statically assigned event priorities, with ceiling priority protocol access to shared data. This simple AADL microkernel semantic core can support all dispatch policies, communication and synchronization mechanisms of a fully fledged AADL run time environment, permitting the systematic use of the RTEdge static analysis tools for AADL compliant software components.

The use of Engine Health Management (EHM) systems has been growing steadily in both the civilian and the military aerospace sectors. Barring a few notable exceptions (such as certain temperature and thrust margin monitoring) regulatory authorities around the world have not required these systems to be certified in any way. This is changing rapidly. New airframes and engines are increasingly being designed with the assumption that EHM will be an integral part of the way customers will operate these assets. This leads to a need for better guidelines on how such systems should be certified. The SAE E-32 committee on Propulsion System Health Monitoring is leading an industry-wide effort to develop a set of guidelines for certifying EHM systems.

The System Architecture Virtual Integration (SAVI) program is a collaboration of industry, government, and academic organizations within the Aerospace Vehicle System Institute (AVSI) with the goal of structuring a new integration process that relies on a single-truth architectural framework. The SAVI approach of Integrate, then Build provides a modern distributed development environment which arrests the propagation of requirements errors through the development life cycle. It does so by capturing design assumptions and shared properties of the system design in an authoritative, annotated architectural model. This reference model provides a common, analyzable framework for confirming that system requirements remain complete, consistent, and correct at all levels of system decomposition. Core concepts of SAVI include extensive use of model-based system engineering tools and use of a single-truth reference architectural model.

One of the major trends in the last decade has been the increasing hybridization in the vehicle population. The degree of hybridization varies from mild to strong including those capable of limited, all electric range. Some experts predict that hybridization will spread to 100% of vehicles in the next decade. In addition, the recent introduction of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles has added a significant new dimension to the hybridization scene. This talk will focus on the global trends in hybrid sales, including plug-in hybrids, and will try to identify the various mechanisms, whether legislation or incentives, which are driving this increase in sales. Data will be gathered from various countries in the world including China, Europe, Japan and the United States. The potential for different mechanisms in play in the developed world compared to the developing world will be examined.