Search Results

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.

Given the fast changing market demands, the growing complexity of features, the shorter time to market, and the design/development constraints, the need for efficient and effective verification and validation methods are becoming critical for vehicle manufacturers and suppliers. One such example is fault-tree analysis. While fault-tree analysis is an important hazard analysis/verification activity, the current process of translating design details (e.g., system level and software level) is manual. Current experience indicates that fault tree analysis involves both creative deductive thinking and more mechanical steps, which typically involve instantiating gates and events in fault trees following fixed patterns. Specifically for software fault tree analysis, a number of the development steps typically involve instantiating fixed patterns of gates and events based upon the structure of the code. In this work, we investigate a methodology to translate software programs to fault trees.

Vehicle electrification is shaping the future of automotive mobility in terms of automotive power and propulsion. The market for New Energy Vehicles (HEV/PHEV/REEV/EV) as well as clean vehicle technologies is expected to grow steadily driven by government regulations mandating increased fuel economy and lower emissions. The fastest growth in this market will be in Asia Pacific, most notably China. The Chinese government has made its intentions clear on how important it considers the development and consumer purchase of hybrid and electric vehicles. The mandate is that by year 2012, vehicle manufacturers produce at least 500,000 units (or 5%) per year of their total output as hybrid and/or electric. All Chinese vehicle manufacturers must have at least one HEV or EV model in the market by the same year. Thus far China has invested over US$3.5 billion to stimulate the production of NEVs and the necessary infrastructure to support them.

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

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.

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.

By introducing the concept of a separation between graphics and logic, interpreted run time architecture, and defined communication protocol, the ARINC 661 standard has addressed many of the concerns that aircraft manufacturers face when creating cockpit avionics displays. However, before kicking off a project based on the standard, it is important to understand all aspects of the standard, as well as the benefits and occasional drawbacks of developing with ARINC 661 in mind. This white paper will first provide an overview of ARINC 661 to clarify its concepts and how these relate to the development process. The paper will also describe the benefits of using a distributed development approach, and will outline practical, real world considerations for implementing an ARINC 661-based solution. Finally, readers will learn how commercial tools can be used to simplify the creation of displays following the standard to speed development and reduce costs.

Plug-In Hybrid and Extended Range Electric Vehicle's have quickly become the focus of many OEM's and suppliers. Existing regulations and test procedures did not anticipate this rapid adoption of this new technology, resulting in many product development challenges. The lack of clear requirements is further complicated by CARBs consideration of CO2 inclusion in their next light duty OBD regulation. This presentation provides an overview of the regulatory requirements for OBD systems on hybrid vehicles that intend to certify in California. Near term challenges for EREV?s and PHEV?s are discussed, including concerns with the existing denominator and warm-up cycle calculations. Some proposals are made to address these concerns. Presenter Andrew Zettel, General Motors Company

The aerospace industry has long sought a solution for storing maintenance history information directly on aircraft parts. In 2005 leading airframe manufacturers determined that passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology presented a unique opportunity to address this industry need. Through the efforts of the Air Transport Association (ATA) RFID on Parts Committee and SAE International testing standards and data specifications are in place to support the broad adoption of passive RFID for storing parts history information directly on aircraft parts. The primary focus of the paper will be on the SAE AS-5678 environmental testing standard for passive RFID tags intended for aircraft use. Detail will be provided to help aerospace manufacturers understand their role and responsibilities for current programs and understand how this may impact their parts certification process.

The OBD approval process can be a frustrating time for both manufacturer and ARB staff. For manufacturers, a long approval process can sometimes mean accepting deficiencies prematurely in exchange for an approval. For ARB staff, they are inundated with highly technical information which they must review, garner understanding of and then apply their experience to evaluate it for compliance. OBD approval anxiety can be minimized, if not avoided, when manufacturers understand ARB�s expectations. This presentation will take you through some unwritten rules and common pitfalls which can impede the approval process, thus providing a guideline to a less painful and more efficient certification document review and approval. Presenter Mark Frank, Winterpark Engineering Llc

In recent years, all major microprocessor manufacturers are transitioning towards the deploymenet of multiple processing cores on every chip. These multi-core architectures represent the industry consensus regarding the most effective utilization of available silicon resources to satisfy growing demands for processing and memory capacities. Porting off-the-shelf software capabilities to multi-core architectures often requires significant changes to data structures and algorithms. When developing new software capabilities specifically for deployment on SMP architectures, software engineers are required to address specific multi-core programming issues, and in the ideal, must do so in ways that are generic to many different multi-core target platforms. This talk provides an overview of the special considerations that must be addressed by software engineers targeting multi-core platforms and describes how the Java language facilitates solutions to these special challenges.

“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. Just how prevalent is the problem of counterfeit electronic parts? What are the consequences of using sub-par components in safety or mission critical systems? The Federal Aviation Administration estimates that 2% of the 26 million airline parts installed each year are counterfeit, accounting for more than 520,000 units, maybe more.

The traction motor is key to the �synergy of the electric powertrain�, the overall functionality of the battery, e-motor, power control electronics, and charging system. Therefore some automakers have decided to design, develop, and produce their traction motors in house while some others are working with suppliers for their electric power train motors. Off-the-shelf motors, no matter how extensively they are adapted for a specific application, can compromise the efficiencies of the propulsion system. Presenter Marc Winterhoff, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants

With automotive electrification, the electric machines show a tendency to share or even replace the dominant role of internal combustion engines in future vehicles. Besides the design and innovation of different electric machines to meet the needs of powertrain and drivetrain performances, high volume production becomes a challenging topic and an un-avoided requirement. Flexible line and sharing line will help the variation of production rate and volume, while the dedicated unique line contributes to large scale of E-motor production. Supplier chain from raw materials, parts to processes has to be built from ground-zero or low grade to mature stage within quality specification and time limitation. Multi function skills, cross area technologies and complex management etc are all required for E-motor manufacturer to grow up with component and equipment suppliers. Reducing cost, improving quality and guaranteeing safety are always the thematic series.

Automakers, suppliers, public agencies, interest groups and others are increasingly embracing the environment as one of the dominant forces in the US automotive market. All parties have a strong vested interest in understanding how environmental concerns will influence design, production, marketing and usage of tomorrow�s vehicles. A common need of all parties is independent and actionable information to enable them to make better decisions and have the greatest chance of being successful in this uncertain future. Four factors - an uncertain economic climate; a constantly changing governmental regulatory system; advancements in powertrain technology; and ever-present environmental concerns - continue to shape the automotive landscape. While automakers are focused on developing alternative powertrains and alternative fuel options for an increasingly �green� vehicle market, J.D.

The Java language is now the most popular programming language for the creation of new software capabilities. Its popularity has resulted in signficant economies of scale, with Java adopted as the primary language of instructional within many university curriculums, an abundance of reusable Java software components and Java software development tools available both from commercial suppliers and as open source technology, a large pool of competent Java developers from which to recruit staff, and a general willingness by senior staff software engineers to invest the effort required to learn this new programming language and technology. This talk describes the special approaches recommended for the use of Java in safety-critical deployments. The talk surveys the current state of the draft JSR-302 Safety Critical Java Specification and describes related experiences with commercially available technologies based on the constraints of early JSR-302 design discussions.

A series of flight tests were conducted to design and evaluate a Combined Vision System (CVS) that integrates a forward looking infrared video image with synthetic vision on a primary flight display. System features included colorizing the video image to mesh with the synthetic terrain background, decluttering the approach symbology to facilitate the detection of the approach lights and runway markings, creating a semi-transparent IR sky to ensure continuous situational awareness of the surrounding terrain, and annunciating the decision height to facilitate the transition to the actual runway environment. Over 100 approaches were flown during three flight test sessions. For the first flight test session pilots reviewed early CVS proofs of concept on Honeywell's Citation Sovereign.

One promising solution for increasing vehicle fuel economy, while still maintaining long-range driving capability, is the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV). A PHEV is a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) whose rechargeable energy source can be recharged from an external power source, making it a combination of an electric vehicle and a traditional hybrid vehicle. A PHEV is capable of operating as an electric vehicle until the battery is almost depleted, at which point the on-board internal combustion engine turns on, and generates power to meet the vehicle demands. When the vehicle is not in use, the battery can be recharged from an external energy source, once again allowing electric driving. A series of models is presented which simulate various powertrain architectures of PHEVs. To objectively evaluate the effect of powertrain architecture on fuel economy, the models were run according to the latest test procedures and all fuel economy values were utility factor weighted.