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Suspension is an important chassis part which is vital to ride comfort [1]. However, it is difficult to achieve our targeted comfortability level in a short time. Therefore, improving efficiency of damper development is our primary challenge. We have launched a project which aims to reduce the workload on developing dampers by introducing analytical approaches to the improvement of ride comfort. To be more specific, we have been putting effort into developing the damping force prediction, the vehicle dynamics prediction and subjective rating prediction. This paper describes subjective rating prediction method which output a subjective rating corresponding to the physical value of the vehicle dynamics with deep learning. As a result of verification using objective data which was not used for learning process, DNN (Deep Neural Network) prediction method could fairly precisely predict subjective rating of the expert driver.

We propose a combined battery system (CBS) for low cost electric vehicles (EVs) to enhance battery life. The EVs popularly called as Neighborhood Electric Vehicle or Low-Speed-Electric-Vehicle are spreading in developing countries. Conventionally the EVs batteries consist of high energy density cells, and we call it as energy cells (EC). A major issue with the EVs is high operational costs mainly due to high battery cost and short lifespan of the ECs. In this study, we develop a CBS consisting of a combination of following two kinds of batteries: i) EC which is the main energy source for the EV, and ii) a battery having high power density also called as power cells (PC) which is more suitable to bear high charge-discharge currents. The key feature of the proposed system is to minimize the size of additional battery by using our high power lithium ion battery. We performed experiments to estimate EC life for several capacity values of the PC.

In this paper, a newly developed three-dimensional (3D) bird's-eye view map drawing technique for car navigation systems is described. Conventional navigation systems give pseudo-perspective views which can not express ruggedness like hills and valleys. Our newly developed navigation system can display undulation of the land from viewpoints above and behind the current position, so that ups and downs of roads along with the driver's destination can be seen easily. The 3D-road map is not only effective during navigation but also during route planning, because it assists in searching for fine views before travel. In order to achieve the 3D-map view, we developed graphics software libraries, which work on a 32-bit RISC processor and on a low-cost graphics accelerator LSI with texture mapping capability. The graphics software libraries are constructed with three stages, the perspective projection stage, visible-surface determination stage, and rendering stage.

Every fuel injection system for DI gasoline engines has a DC-DC converter to provide high, stabile voltage for opening the injector valve more quickly. A current control circuit for holding the valve open is also needed, as well as a large-capacity capacitor for pilot injection. Since these components occupy considerable space, an injector drive unit separate from the ECU must be used. Thus, there has been a need for a fuel injection system that can inject a small volume of fuel without requiring high voltage. To meet that need, we have developed a dual coil injector and an opening coil current control system. An investigation was also made of all the factors related to the dynamic range of the injector, including static flow rate, fuel pressure, battery voltage and harness resistance. Both efforts have led to the adoption of a battery voltage-driven fuel injector.

The problem of high fatal accident rates due to drunk driving persists, and must be reduced. This paper reports on a prototype system mounted on a car mock-up and a prototype portable system that enables the checking of the drivers’ sobriety using a breath-alcohol sensor. The sensor unit consists of a water-vapor-sensor and three semiconductor gas sensors for ethanol, acetaldehyde, and hydrogen. One of the systems’ features is that they can detect water vapor from human-exhaled breath to prevent false detection with fake gases. Each gas concentration was calculated by applying an algorithm based on a differential evolution method. To quickly detect the water vapor in exhaled breath, we applied an AC voltage between the two electrodes of the breath-water-vapor sensor and used our alcohol-detection algorithm. The ethanol level was automatically calculated from the three gas sensors as soon as the water vapor was detected.

System configurations of water recycling for space use have been continued through theoretical and experimental studies. The water recycling system plays a central role in a Closed Ecological Life Support System (CELSS) which offers necessary environment and life styles in closed environment such as space stations, lunar bases, etc.. Membrane technology is a possible candidate for purifying waste water produced by crew use facility, plant cultivation facility, etc. In considerations of the system compactness realizing energy saving, membrane distillation has been revealed to be a suitable purification process. Ground experiments has been performed using membrane filtration processes and membrane distillation process. Thermopervaporation technology with hydrophobic membrane is utilized in the distillation process. The energy saving is achieved by thermal return of condensation energy.

We have developed a drive cycle (DC) to test Hitachi’s combined battery system (CBS) for electric vehicles (EVs) having battery lifespan enhancements. Conventionally EV batteries consist of high energy density cells, and we call them as energy cells (EC). A major issue with the EVs is high operational costs mainly due to short lifespan of the ECs. CBS almost doubles the EC and thus overall battery system lifespan, as per the evaluation over a WLTP based method. We want to test the CBS under Indian conditions which has predominantly hot weather, and traffic jam scenarios. Battery deterioration and thus its lifespan is sensitive to traffic conditions and ambient temperature. Hence, it was needed to evaluate the CBS over an Indian DC and use 40°C as ambient temperature. However, it was difficult to carry out the tests since there is no standard Indian DC for small / light weight four wheelers.

The recovery of important minerals, salt (NaCI) and potassium (K), in a closed system, namely CELSS is discussed. NaCI is needed for humans, but is potentially harmful to plants. Salt is recovered after wet oxidation of urine. Since Na and K have similar chemical and physical properties, their recovery or separation may require sophisticated methods. Na, CI and K ions are separated from other ions by electrodialysis with univalent selective ion-exchange membranes and then NaCI is obtained separately by a crystalization process. Preliminary experiment on crystalization of NaCI-KCl mixed solutions showed a good separation result.

Magnetic Phase Shifter is the controlling element to make integral action, excellent in anti-noise performance and makes high stable and reliable controlling device. (1)* We have developed a new compact thyristor chopper equipment controlled by Magnetic Phase Shifter. This equipment has simple controlling circuit and many functions such as wide range duty factor control, adjustable plugging brake, speed up by field weakening, anti-rollback control and so on.

The oxygen ion conductive solid electrolyte cell served as a device for measuring the combustibles content and the oxygen content of an exhaust gas. The cell is comprised of a tubular electrolyte, two opposed electrodes and a porous diffusion layer located on the outer electrode surface. The sensor is employed to measure both rich and lean air fuel ratio through the use of an electronic circuit pumping the oxygen ions to achieve a constant voltage between the electrodes. The wide range detecting capability makes it particularly attractive for air fuel ratio control applications associated with the internal combustion engine. The result of the performance tests are as follows, Detecting range (air excess ratio λ) : 0.8 - “∞ Step response time constant (63%) : 200ms Warm up time. - less than 80 sec at 20°C We found in the durability test concerned with the heat cycle and contamination that if initial aging treatment is applied the output variation ratio (. λ/λ) is limited with in : 5%.

This paper discusses causes and the mechanism of surging, back and forth chassis oscillation which occurs in cars with electronically controlled multi-point gasoline injection systems. This occurs during sharp acceleration, engine braking deceleration, and low speed coasting, at rather low ratio gear positions. We conclude that the mechanism of surging is parametric coupled oscillation. This conclusion is based on experimental data analysts and parameter sensitivity analysis using a chassis and engine dynamics simulator. The elements of parametric coupled oscillation are: a forcing system composed of engine control systems, engine and power transmission systems; a resonance system composed of axle and frame-body translation systems; a feedback system composed of axle translation systems and wheel revolution systems.

A totally integrated vehicle electronic control system is described, which optimizes vehicle performance through use of electronics. The system implements efficient coordination of functions of the engine, drive-train, brakes, steering, and suspension control subsystems to give a smoother ride, better handling and greater safety. The principles of the system are based on control and stability augmentation strategies. Each subsystem has two observers which control the force of the actuators according to the vehicle dynamics. The system features a driver support system which allows the average driver to employ the full performance potential of the vehicle in exceptional situations, and an artificial response control system to ensure optimum response and comfort. Application of the system allows the driver to experience a new level of performance and a marked improvement in handling quality and ride comfort.

The concept of a “controller grid”, which makes effective use of computational resources distributed on a network while guaranteeing real-time operation, is proposed and applied to realize highly advanced control. It facilitates the total optimization of a plant control and achieves the high efficiency that is not acquired by individual plant optimization. To realize this concept, migration of a control task customized to be executed on one particular microcontroller to another microcontroller is necessary while strictly observing the required response time. Two techniques to meet this requirement are proposed: “task migration” for a control system and “real-time guaranteed scheduling of task migration and execution”. The effectiveness of the controller grid is assessed by applying it in experiments with electronic-throttle-body (ETB) advanced control.

A virtual power window control system was built in order to look into and demonstrate applications of microcontroller models. A virtual ECU simulated microcontroller hardware operations. The microcontroller program, which was written in binary digital codes, was executed step-by-step as the virtual ECU simulation went on. Thus, production-ready codes of ECUs are of primary interest in this research. The mechanical system of the power window, the DC motor to lift the window glass, the H-bridge MOSFET drivers, and the current sensing circuit to detect window locking are also modeled. This means that the hardware system of the control system was precisely modeled in terms of mechanical and circuit components. By integrating these models into continuous and discrete co-simulation, the power window control system was analyzed in detail from the microscopic command execution of the microcontroller to the macroscopic motion of the window mechanism altogether.

Safety concepts are essential to conform to functional safety standard ISO 26262 for automotive products. Safety requirements, which are a part of safety concepts, shall be satisfied by products to avoid hazards by vehicles to maintain their safety. Incompleteness of safety requirements must be avoided in deriving parent requirements to its children. However, measure for checking is only reviewing when the safety requirements are described in a natural language. This measure for checking is not objective or stringent. We developed a specification technique written in formal notation that addresses some of the shortcomings of capturing safety requirements for verification purposes. Safety requirements in this notation are expressed in goal tree models, which originate from goal-oriented requirement engineering Knowledge Acquisition in autOmated Specification (KAOS). Each requirement is written with propositional logic as the node of a tree.

Highly automated driving systems have a responsibility to keep a vehicle safe even in abnormal conditions such as random or systematic failures. However, creating redundancy in a system to respond to failures increases the cost of the system, and simple redundancy cannot detect systematic failures because some systematic failures occur in each system at the same time. Systematic failures in automated driving systems cannot be verified sufficiently during the development phase due to numerous patterns of parameters input from outside the system. A safety concept based on a “safety sustainer” for highly automated driving systems is proposed. The safety sustainer is designed for keeping a vehicle in a safe state for several seconds if a failure occurs in the system and notifying the driver that the system is in failure mode and requesting the driver to take over control of the vehicle.

We propose low inductance batteries and enhance power density for a inverter. Conventionally, the capacitors are used for smoothing ripple of the inverter. The low inductance battery which responds at carrier frequency of inverter can reduce the capacity of the smoothing capacitors and enable to enhance power density for the inverter. For reducing the inductance, it is necessary to separately understand the impact of electrochemical reaction under wide range of assumed conditions and structural reaction on frequency characteristics. Furthermore, it is also necessary to design the low inductance batteries based on combining the both of characteristics. However, there are no study focusing on modeling by combining such different domains. Therefore, we made original inductance model inside battery considering frequency characteristics among all materials and structural influence with electromagnetic field analysis simulator.

We developed a flexible system with EVs for solving imbalance between electricity demand and supply avoiding degradation of EV’s battery life. Such flexible systems are commonly being examined but nothing the system which uses battery considering impact of its battery life to avoid shorten EV’s operation period. Therefore, we developed one of methodologies to select preferable load facilities based on imbalance trend and flexible prices. The imbalance trend means a duration of the imbalance. The flexible prices mean operation cost to provide flexibility. By comparing the flexible prices and operation profit, it is possible to prevent unnecessary operation. As a result, we demonstrated our flexible system works as designed based on these parameters.