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Design of a Cabin Tilting System of heavy trucks, a multi degree of freedom mechanism, is a challenge. Factors like adequate tilting angle, cabin styling, packaging, non interference of tilting system with ride comfort, forces in the system, specifications of the hydraulic system, are all very important for designing the system. Numerous considerations make the design process highly iterative hence longer design time. This paper primarily focuses on Kinematics and Dynamic analysis of the system in ADAMS and validation of system with real time testing results. Intention of this work is to make a parametric ADAMS model and link it to a Knowledge Based Engineering application to facilitate designer to quickly carry out design iterations for reducing development time. The Knowledge Based Engineering software is made using object oriented language called ‘Object Definition Language’ which has been developed using C and C++ software languages.

As the vehicle functions are getting distributed over multiple ECUs in order to realize various complex control functions, the need for sophisticated on-board diagnostic strategies are increasing in automotive domain, leading to a significant amount of hardware and software implementations for fault management inside various ECUs in the vehicle. This paper proposes optimized vehicle level approach for fault management strategies, wherein a centralized intelligent Gateway Module is proposed in the vehicle network architecture, which will be responsible for fault management of the complete vehicle in a chronological sequence. This Gateway Module will thereby have the possibility to group a cluster of faults raised by different ECUs and correlate them meaningfully to guide the operator towards root cause of the fault.

Computed Tomography (CT) has become a potent instrument for non-invasive assessment of battery cell integrity, providing detailed insights into their internal structure. The present study explores the capabilities and advantages of employing CT for cell characterization through a systematic evaluation from various parameters. The evaluation results will be based on real-world experiments conducted on a standard battery cell, assessing the CT system’s ability to provide precise internal measurements, detect defects, and ensure the overall integrity of the cell. We outline a comprehensive framework that includes criteria such as system specifications, image quality, software capabilities, maintenance, service, and cost-effectiveness.

In a Mild hybrid electric vehicle, a battery serves as a continuous source of energy but is inefficient in supplying peak power demands required during torque assists for short duration. Moreover, the random charging and discharging that result due to varying drive cycle of the vehicle affects the life of the battery. In this paper, an Ultra-capacitor based hybrid energy storage system (HESS) has been developed for mild hybrid vehicle which aims at utilizing the advantages of ultracapacitors by combining them with lead-acid batteries, to improve the overall performance of the battery, and to increase their useful life. Active current-sharing is achieved by interfacing ultracapacitor to the battery through a bi-directional boost dc-dc converter.

The ever-tightening regulation norms across the world emphasize the magnitude of the air pollution problem. The decision to leapfrog from BS4 to BS6 – with further reduction in emission limits -showed India’s commitment to clean up its atmosphere. The overall cycle emissions were reduced significantly to meet BS6 targets [1]. However, the introduction of RDE norms in BS6.2 [1] demanded further reduction in emissions under real time operating conditions – start-stop, hard acceleration, idling, cold start – which was possible only through strategies that demanded a cost effective yet robust solutions. The first few seconds of the engine operation after start contribute significantly to the cycle gaseous emissions. This is because the thermal inertia of the catalytic converter restricts the rate at which temperature of the catalyst increases and achieves the desired “light-off” temperature.

Since last decade automotive Industry is witnessing transition from ICE to EV due to stringent environmental laws by government bodies and technological breakthrough. EV technology is emerging day by day. Biggest challenge in front of OEM is the phase shift from ICE to EV. OEM need to decide on glide path for test rig development for this change to support ICE & EV powertrain validation to deliver reliable product to their customers. In EV development, major focus is on investment for battery development. Hence, for the Motor and Gearbox validation balanced approach is to upgrade existing ICE test bench for the EV with minimum effort and cost. This paper provides details on need and approach required to make the ICE test bench capable for EV powertrain validation. Proposed methodology helps to support both type of powertrain and have maximum utilization of the test bench.

Anthropomorphic Test Devices (ATD) are the backbone of any crash research lab, their performance during the crash tests being of paramount importance to assess the vehicle performance. The Hybrid III 50th percentile dummy (H350) is one of the most recognized and accepted ATD for research in this field. However several unusual results of the dummy injuries in a vehicle crash test indicate some discrepancies exists in the dummy design. This prompted researchers to investigate such things and this paper is based on a project conducted to study the chest deflection of the hybrid 350 dummy. The project deals with assessing the dummy's chest deflection response sensitivity to load location as well as ambient operating conditions. The scope involved testing of the dummy chest by loading it quasi-statically on a UTM as well as dynamically impacting it on the dummy calibration rig. The chest deflection or thorax displacement data and loading data was gathered and analyzed further.

Jerk in a vehicle is a feel of user which appears due to sudden acceleration changes. The amplitude and frequency components of the jerk defines quality of an engine or an AMT calibration tuning. Traditional jerk evaluation methods use amplitude (peak) of the jerk as a performance index and its frequencies are either used as weighing factor with amplitude or not taken into account. A method is proposed in this paper to quantify and differentiate the non-acceptable level of jerk which is perceivable to human body. Jerk is obtained by differentiating the acceleration data which contains the frequencies in the lower to higher range. Differentiation of such signal causes an amplification of undesired noise in both analog and digital circuits. This results in significant loss or disturbances in the useful data.

Spot welding is the primary joining method used in automobiles. Spot-weld plays a major role to maintain vehicle structural integrity during impact tests. Robust spot weld failure definitions is critical for accurate predictions of structural performance in safety simulations. Spot welds have a complex metallurgical structure, mainly consisting of fusion and heat affected zones. For accurate material property definitions in simulation models, huge number of inputs from test data is required. Multiple tests, using different spot weld joinery configurations, have to be conducted. In order to accurately represent the spot-weld behavior in CAE, detailed modeling is required using fine mesh. The current challenge in spot-weld failure assessment is developing a methodology having a better trade-off between prediction accuracy, testing efforts and computation time. In view of the above, cohesive zone models have been found to be very effective and accurate.

High strength aluminium alloys are an ideal material in the automotive sector leading to a significant weight reduction and enhancement in product safety. In recent past extensive development in the field of high strength steel and aluminium was undertaken. This development has been propelled due to demand for light weight automotive parts. The high strength to weight ratio possessed by Al alloy helps in reducing the total weight of the vehicle without effecting the overall performance, thereby increasing the fuel economy, and reducing the carbon emission level. Joining of high strength aluminium alloy is critical to develop durable automotive products. Joining of high strength aluminium alloy for mass production in automobile industry is a challenging task. Laser welding is recognized as an advanced process to join materials with a laser beam of high-power, high- energy density.

Integrating safety features may lead to changes in vehicle interior component designs. Considering this complexity, design guidelines have to take care of aspects which may help in package feasibility studies that consider systems performance requirements. Occupant restraints systems for protection in side crashes generally comprise of Side Airbag (SAB) and Curtain Airbag (IC). These components have to be integrated considering design and styling aspects of interior trims, seat contours and body structure for performance efficient package definition. In side crashes, occupant injury risk increases due to hard contact with intruding structure. This risk could be minimized by cushioning the occupant contact through provision of SAB and Inflatable IC. This paper explains the methodology for deciding the package definitions using Knowlwdge Based Engineering (KBE) tools.

Brake drum is an important component in automotive, which is a link between axle and wheel. It performance is of utmost importance as it is related to the safety of the car as well to the passengers. Many design parameters are taken into consideration while designing the brake drum. The sensitivity of these parameters is studied for optimum design of brake drum. The critical parameters in terms of reliability, safety & durability could be the cross section, thickness of hub, interference & surface roughness between bearing and hub, wheel loading, heat generation on drum, manufacturing and assembly process. The brake drum design is derived by considering these parameters. Hence the sensitivity of these parameters is studied both virtually & physically, in detail. The optimum value of each parameter could be chosen complying each other's values.

This paper is in the field of communication networks where different Electronic Control Units (ECUs) communicate with each other using various communication protocols such as Controller Area Network (CAN), Local Interconnect Network (LIN), FlexRay, etc. Typically such types of communication networks are widely used in automobile domain. This paper proposes a holistic approach for evaluation and finalization of complex network architecture for a vehicle. As part of this proposed method, at first one reference-network architecture is constructed for the highest end variant of the vehicle considering all possible ECUs for this vehicle. Then other possible logical variations in network architecture are constructed, which can also technically represent the vehicle's network architecture. Then a set of criteria measures are considered to evaluate how good (or bad) each variation of network architecture is with respect to the reference-network architecture.

This paper focuses on developing an application to extract insights from Android app reviews of Connected Car Applications and Twitter conversations related to OEM’ PV & EV Vehicles and features. Analyzing user sentiments and preferences in real-time can drive innovation and elevate OEMs' customer satisfaction. These insights have the potential to enhance vehicle performance and the manufacturing process. The application employs data collection and Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, including User-Driven Sentiment Classification and topic modeling, to analyze user sentiments and identify key discussion topics visually.

Increasing number of ECU's (Electronic Control Units) being used in modern vehicles have given rise to HIL (hardware in the loop) testing, and model based design approach to design/test ECU's even before the proto-type vehicle is ready. However, it is not uncommon to discover surprising system design lapses during actual vehicle operation reported after vehicle launch. Major cause behind such lapses are found to be the gap between actual field performance/robustness of various vehicle sub-systems interfaced with ECU's and those modeled as ideal cases during HIL testing in the lab. This creates a need to evolve effective vehicle-level validation strategies to expose such performance deficiencies of real life sub-systems provided by the vendors. This paper describes a new approach to validate ECU in real time.

Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) and battery electric vehicles are being touted worldwide by the automotive industry and policy makers as the answer to decarbonizing the transportation sector. FCEVs are especially suited for commercial vehicle applications as they offer very short re-fueling times that is comparable to conventional internal combustion engine vehicles. While this is entirely possible there are host of challenges that include safety, that need to be addressed to make short refilling times possible for commercial vehicles where the hydrogen storage requirement is higher (25 kg or more). This is due to the rise in temperature of the hydrogen in the cylinder due to compression and the negative Joule-Thompson coefficient. The SAE J2601 standard limits the safe temperature limit of hydrogen gas in the cylinder to 85 °C during filling.

The AMT (Automated Manual Transmission) has attracted increasing interest of automotive researches, because it has some advantages of both MT (Manual Transmission) and AT (Automatic Transmission), such as low cost, high efficiency, easy to use and good comfort. The hill-start assistance is an important feature of AMT. The vehicle will move backward, start with jerk, or cause engine stalling if failed on the slope road. For manual transmission, hill-start depends on the driver's skills to coordinate with the brake, clutch and throttle pedal to achieve a smooth start. However, with the AMT, clutch pedal is removed and therefore, driver can’t perceive the clutch position, making it difficult to hill-start with AMT without hill-start control strategy. This paper discussed about the hill start control strategy and its functioning.

With the rise of worldwide trends towards light weighting and the move towards electric vehicles, it is now more important than ever for the automotive industry to develop and implement lightweight materials that will result in significant weight reduction and product improvements. A great deal of research has been done on how to best combine and configure honeycomb cores with the right face sheets for Truck-Mounted Container Applications. Honeycomb structures possess the ability to bring about superior structural rigidity when the core parameters are selected and optimized based on the automotive application requirements.

One of the very first customer touchpoint in a vehicle is quality of gear shifting. Gearshift quality is perceived as a symbol of refinement of a vehicle. Globally, lot of efforts are taken to refine the gearshift quality. Design improvements in internal components of transmission, cable and shifter assembly, knob design iterations are carried out to arrive at optimum gearshift quality at the vehicle level. Current practice for this activity includes processes such as design modification, manufacturing of proto components, assembly of components and fitment in the vehicle. This vehicle is then instrumented with sensors and data acquisition units to capture the parameters which determine the gearshift quality. This is an iterative process which goes on until necessary refinement/improvement is achieved. This process requires investment of lot of time, efforts and the budget. This paper describes a virtual approach to arrive at optimum design of components.

Automotive embedded control systems need to implement real-time closed-loop control strategies for controlling valves, motors, etc. The implementation needs to focus on use of low cost hardware and efficient software with minimal foot-print so as to adequately meet the application requirement. This paper highlights the low cost hardware and software design concepts by way of a case study related to control of progressive EGR valve. The control strategy is based on "map-driven set-points" where percentage opening of the valve is stored in the form of 16x16 matrices. The set-points are accessed based on instantaneous throttle and engine rpm values which form the row and column indices of the map. The closed loop control algorithm eliminates the need for multiplication by implementing "feed-forward with integral control algorithm." A feed-forward map specifies the most likely PWM duty cycle to be applied to the valve for a given set-point.