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The three major challenges in the power electronics in hybrid and electric vehicles are: System cost, power density and reliability. High temperature power device and packaging technologies increases the power density and reliability while reducing system cost. Advanced Silicon devices with synthesized high-temperature packaging technologies can achieve junction temperature as high as 200C (compared to the present limitation of 150C) eliminating the need for a low-temperature radiator and therefore these devices reduces the system cost. The silicon area needed for a power inverter with high junction temperature capability can be reduced by more than 50 - 75% thereby significantly reducing the packaging space and power device and package cost. Smaller packaging space is highly desired since multiple vehicle platforms can share the same design and therefore reducing the cost further due to economies of scale.

Trans Tech recently debuted the all-electric eTrans school bus providing a total zero emission school bus. The presentation will demonstrate Smith Electric Vehicles and their history with electric vehicles. The presentation will help ensure that everybody has an idea of what the electric school bus will do and to dispel any rumors about the vehicle. Presenter Brian S. Barrington, Trans Tech. Bus

Previous research has shown that elevating fuel injection pressure results in better air-fuel mixture formation, allowing for a further increase in maximum exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) rate while consequently reducing NOx emissions. The aim of this paper is to find out whether there is an optimum injection pressure for lowest soot-NOx emissions at a given boost pressure in high-speed diesel engines. Experiments are carried out on a single-cylinder research engine with a prototype common-rail system, capable of more than 200 MPa injection pressure. The effect of injection pressure on soot-NOx formation is investigated for a variety of boost conditions, representing the conditions of single to multi-stage turbocharger systems. Analysis of the data is performed at the application relevant soot to NOx ratio of approximately 1:10. It is observed that above a critical injection pressure, soot-NOx emissions are not reduced any further.

The introduction of CO₂-reduction technologies like Start-Stop or the Hybrid-Powertrain and the future emission legislation require a detailed optimization of the engine start-up. The combustion concept development as well as the calibration of the ECU makes an explicit thermodynamic analysis of the combustion process during the start-up necessary. Initially, the well-known thermodynamic analysis of in-cylinder pressure at stationary condition was transmitted to the highly non-stationary engine start-up. There, the current models for calculation of the transient wall heat fluxes were found to be misleading. Therefore, adaptations to the start-up conditions of the known models by Woschni, Hohenberg and Bargende were introduced for calculation of the wall heat transfer coefficient in SI engines with gasoline direct injection. This paper shows how the indicated values can be measured during the engine start-up.

Active safety systems will have a great impact in the next generation of vehicles. This is partly originated by the increasing consumer's interest for safety and partly by new traffic safety laws. Control actions in the vehicle are based on an extensive environment model which contains information about relevant objects in vehicle surroundings. Sensor data fusion integrates measurements from different surround sensors into this environment model. In order to avoid system malfunctions, high reliability in the interpretation of the situation, and therefore in the environment model, is essential. Hence, the main idea of data fusion is to make use of the advantages of using multiple sensors and different technologies in order to fulfill these requirements, which are especially high due to autonomous interventions in vehicle dynamics (e. g. automatic emergency braking).

Due to the increasingly stricter emission legislation and growing demands for lower fuel consumption, there have been significant efforts to improve combustion efficiency while satisfying the emission requirements. Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) combined with turbo/supercharging on gasoline engines provides a particularly promising and, at the same time, a challenging approach. Naturally aspirated (n.a.) HCCI has already shown a considerable potential of about 14% in the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) compared with a conventional 4-cylinder 2.0 liter gasoline Port Fuel Injection (PFI) engine without any advanced valve-train technology. The HCCI n.a. operation range is air breathing limited due to the hot residuals required for the self-ignition and to slow down reaction kinetics, and therefore is limited to a part-load operation area.

Regarding the strongly growing two-wheeler market fuel economy, price and emission legislations are in focus of current development work. Fuel economy as well as emissions can be improved by introduction of engine management systems (EMS). In order to provide the benefits of an EMS for low cost motorcycles, efforts are being made at BOSCH to reduce the costs of a port fuel injection (PFI) system. The present paper describes a method of how to reduce the number of sensors of a PFI system by the use of sophisticated software functions based on high-resolution engine speed evaluation. In order to improve the performance of a system working without a MAP-sensor (manifold air pressure sensor) an air charge feature (ACFn) based on engine speed is introduced. It is shown by an experiment that ACFn allows to detect and adapt changes in manifold air pressure. Cross-influences on ACFn are analyzed by simulations and engine test bench measurements.

Fuel economy of two-wheelers is an important factor influencing the purchasing psychology of the consumer within the emerging markets. Additionally, air pollution being a major environmental topic, there is a rising concern about vehicle emissions, especially in the big cities and their metropolitan areas. Potentially, the relatively expensive engine management systems are providing more features and value in comparison to the carburettor counterpart. The combustion system analysis is carried out on a 125 cm3 motorcycle engine and the subsequent numerical simulation comparing the carburettor and the Electronic (Port) Fuel Injection which provides a basis to establish the fuel consumption benefit for the electronic injection systems [1].

A variety of methodologies to use embedded multicore controllers efficiently has been discussed in the last years. Several assumptions are usually made in the automotive domain, such as static assignment of tasks to the cores. This paper shows an approach for efficient task allocation depending on different system modes. An engine management system (EMS) is used as application example, and the performance improvement compared to static allocation is assessed. The paper is structured as follows: First the control algorithms for the EMS will be classified according to operating modes. The classified algorithms will be allocated to the cores, depending on the operating mode. We identify mode transition points, allowing a reliable switch without neglecting timing requirements. As a next step, it will be shown that a load distribution by mode-dependent task allocation would be better balanced than a static task allocation.

The newly released Distributed System Interface 3 (DSI3) Bus Standard specification defines three modulation levels form which 16 valid symbols are coded. This complex structure is best decoded with symbol pattern recognition. This paper proposes a simplification of the correlation score calculation that sharply reduces the required number of operations. Additionally, the paper describes how the pattern recognition is achieved using correlation scores and a decoding algorithm. The performance of this method is demonstrated by mean of simulations with different load models between the master and the sensors and varying noise injection on the channel. We prove than the pattern recognition can decode symbols without any error for up to 24dBm.

This paper discusses the RDC method utilizing delta-sigma analog-to-digital converter hardware module (DSADC) integrated in the Infineon's microcontroller family. With its higher resolution capability when compared to the regularly used ADC with successive-approximation (SAR), DSADC seems to have more potential. On the other hand, DSADC's inherent properties, such as asynchronous sampling rate and group delay, which when not handled properly, would have negative effects to the rotor positioning system. The solution to overcome those side-effects involves utilization of other internal microcontroller's resources such as timers and capture units, as well as additional software processing run inside CPU. The rotor positioning system is first modeled and simulated in high-level simulation language environment (Matlab and Simulink) in order to predict the transient- and steady state behaviors. The group delay itself is obtained by simulating the model of DSADC module implementation.

In order to comply with more and more stringent emission standards, like EU6 which will be mandatory starting in September 2014, GDI engines have to be further optimized particularly in regard of PN emissions. It is generally accepted that the deposition of liquid fuel wall films in the combustion chamber is a significant source of particulate formation in GDI engines. Particularly the wall surface temperature and the temperature drop due to the interaction with liquid fuel spray were identified as important parameters influencing the spray-wall interaction [1]. In order to quantify this temperature drop at combustion chamber surfaces, surface temperature measurements on the piston of a single-cylinder engine were conducted. Therefore, eight fast-response thermocouples were embedded 0.3 μm beneath the piston surface and the signals were transmitted from the moving piston to the data acquisition system via telemetry.

Due to the principle of direct injection, which is applied in modern homogeneously operated gasoline engines, there are various operation points with significant particulate emissions. The spray droplets contact the piston surface during the warm-up and early injections, in particular. The fuel wall films and the resulting delayed evaporation of the liquid fuel is one of the main sources of soot particles. It is therefore necessary to carry out investigations into the formation of wall film. The influence of the spray impact angle is of special interest, as this is a major difference between engines with side-mounted injectors and centrally positioned injectors. This paper describes an infrared thermography-based method, which we used to carry out a systematic study of fuel deposits on the walls of the combustion chamber. The boundary conditions of the test section were close to those of real GDI engines operated with homogeneous charge.

The underlying theories of both control engineering and real-time systems engineering assume idealized system abstractions that mutually neglect central aspects of the other discipline. Control engineering theory, on the one hand, usually assumes jitter free sampling and constant input-output latencies disregarding complex real-world timing effects. Real-time engineering theory, on the other hand, uses abstract performance models that neglect the functional behavior, and derives worst-case situations that have little expressiveness for control functionalities in physically dominated automotive systems. As a consequence, there is a lot of potential for a systematic co-engineering between both disciplines, increasing design efficiency and confidence. We have taken a standard control-engineering tool, Simulink, and combined it with state-of-the-art real-time system design and analysis tools, SymTA/S and TraceAnalyzer from Symtavision.

The spray-guided combustion process offers a high potential for fuel savings in gasoline engines in the part load range. In this connection, the injector and spark plug are arranged in close proximity to one another, as a result of which mixture formation is primarily shaped by the dynamics of the fuel spray. The mixture formation time is very short, so that at the time of ignition the velocity of flow is high and the fuel is still largely present in liquid form. The quality of mixture formation thus constitutes a key aspect of reliable ignition. In this article, the spray characteristics of an outward-opening piezo injector are examined using optical testing methods under pressure chamber conditions and the results obtained are correlated with ignition behaviour in-engine. The global spray formation is examined using high-speed visualisation methods, particularly with regard to cyclical fluctuations.

Equipping low cost two-wheelers with engine management systems (EMS) enables not only a reduction of emissions but also an improvement in fuel consumption and system robustness. These benefits are accompanied by initially higher system costs compared to carburetor systems. Therefore, intelligent software solutions are developed by Bosch, which enable a reduction of the necessary sensors for a port fuel injection system (PFI) and furthermore provide new possibilities for combustion control. One example for these intelligent software solutions is a model based evaluation of the engine speed. By use of the information contained in the engine speed signal, characteristic features like air charge, indicated mean effective pressure (imep) and combustion phasing are derivable. The present paper illustrates how these features could be used to reduce the system costs and to improve fuel consumption and system robustness.

Cost reduction of engine management systems (EMS) for two-wheeler applications is the key to utilize their potentials compared to carburetor bikes regarding emissions, fuel economy and system robustness. In order to reduce the costs of a system with port fuel injection (PFI) Bosch is developing an EMS without a manifold air pressure (MAP) sensor. The pressure sensor is usually used to compensate for different influences on the air mass, which cannot be detected via the throttle position sensor (TPS) and mean engine speed. Such influences are different leakage rates of the throttle body and changing ambient conditions like air pressure. Bosch has shown in the past that a virtual sensor relying on model based evaluation of engine speed can be used for a detection of leakage air mass in idling to improve the pre-control of the air-fuel ratio. This provides a functionality which so far was only possible with an intake pressure sensor.

In-vehicle communication faces increasing bandwidth demands, which can no longer be met by today's MOST150, FlexRay or CAN networks. In recent years, Fast Ethernet has gained a lot of momentum in the automotive world, because it promises to bridge the bandwidth gap. A first step in this direction is the introduction of Ethernet as an On Board Diagnostic (OBD) interface for production vehicles. The next potential use cases include the use of Ethernet in Driver Assistance Systems and in the infotainment domain. However, for many of these use cases, the Fast Ethernet solution is too slow to move the huge amount of data between the Domain Controllers, ADAS Systems, Safety Computer and Chassis Controller in an adequate way. The result is the urgent need for a network technology beyond the Fast Ethernet solution. The question is: which innovation will provide enough bandwidth for domain controllers, fast flashing routines, video data, MOST-replacement and internal ECU buses?

Vibration testing is often carried out for automotive components to meet guidelines based on their operational environments. This is an iterative process wherein design changes may need to be made depending on an intermediate model’s dynamic behavior. Predicting the behavior based on modifications in boundary conditions of a well-defined numerical model imparts practical insights to the component’s responses. To this end, application of a general method using experimental free-free condition frequency response functions of a structure is discussed in the presented work. The procedure is shown to be useful for prediction of responses when kinematic boundary conditions are applied, without the need for an actual measurement. This approach is outlined in the paper and is applied to datasets where dynamic modifications are made at multiple boundary nodes.

India contributed to 11% of the global road accidents and was ranked 1st among road deaths according to the latest World Health Organization (WHO) report 2018. Indian National Highways (NH) is a meagre 5% of the country’s road network but accounts for 55% of the road accidents and 61% of the road deaths. Majority of the freight traffic is ferried by Commercial Vehicles (CV) or trucks along these highways and this in turn increases the probability of them being involved in a road accident. The country’s economy is forecasted to thrive in the coming years and hence the requirement of CVs is aligned to international categorisation in the supply chain and shall play a pivotal role. In the year 2019, 13,532 road deaths were associated with CV occupants. The trucking industry is an unorganized sector wherein the illegal overloading of vehicles and over-the-limit driving hours pose a serious threat to road users.