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Distributed drive electric vehicle (EV) is driven by four independent hub motors mounted directly in wheels and retains traditional hydraulic brake system. So it can quickly produce driving/braking motor torque and large stable hydraulic braking force. In this paper a new control allocation strategy for distributed drive electric vehicle is proposed to improve vehicle's lateral stability performance. It exploits the quick response of motor torque and controllable hydraulic pressure of the hydraulic brake system. The allocation strategy consists of two sections. The first section uses an optimal allocation controller to calculate the total longitudinal force of each wheel. In the controller, a dynamic efficiency matrix is designed via local linearization to improve lateral stability control performance, as it considers the influence of tire coupling characteristics over yaw moment control in extreme situations.

As a critical technology for autonomous vehicles, high precise positioning is essential for automated container terminals to implement intelligent dispatching and to improve container transport efficiency. Because of the unstable performance of global positioning system (GPS) in some circumstances, an ultra wide band (UWB) positioning system is developed for autonomous trucks in an automated container terminal. In this paper, an asynchronous structure is adopted in the system, and a three-dimensional (3D) localization method is proposed. Other than a traditional UWB positioning system with a server, in this asynchronous system, positions are calculated in the vehicle. Therefore, propagation delays from the server to vehicles are eliminated, and the real-time performance can be significantly improved. Traditional 3D localization methods based on time difference of arrival (TDOA) are mostly invalid with anchors in the same plane.

During light to moderate braking at high speed, the local high temperature phenomenon can be observed on the brake disc surfaces, known as hot spots. The occurrence of hot spots will lead to negative effects such as brake performance fade, thermal judder and local wear, which seriously affect the performance of vehicle NVH. In this paper, based on the bench test of a ventilated disc brake, the basic characteristics of hot spots is obtained and the evolution process of temperature field and disc deformation is analyzed in detail. In temperature field, hot bands appear first and grow, migrate from inner and outer radius to the middle, with the growing temperature fluctuation and finally hot spots appear in the middle radius of the brake disc. The stable SRO waviness forms much earlier than the temperature fluctuation. In the stop brake studied in this paper, the SRO waviness stabilizes in main 7 order state which is lower than the final hot spot order.

Combustion diagnostics of highly diluted mixtures are essential for the estimation of the combustion quality, and control of combustion timing in advanced combustion systems. In this paper, a novel fast response flame detection technique based on active plasma is introduced and investigated. Different from the conventional ion current sensing used in internal combustion engines, a separate electrode gap is used in the detecting probing. Further, the detecting voltage across the electrode gap is modulated actively using a multi-coil system to be slightly below the breakdown threshold before flame arrival. Once the flame front arrives at the probe, the ions on the flame front tend to decrease the breakdown voltage threshold and trigger a breakdown event. Simultaneous electrical and optical measurements are employed to investigate the flame detecting efficacy via active plasma probing under both quiescent and flow conditions.

Based on the four-wheel-drive electric vehicle (4WD EV), a variable structure control (VSC) strategy is designed in this paper for the anti-lock braking control. With nonpeak friction coefficient as target, sign judgment method of switch function in this VSC strategy is improved and a new control algorithm is proposed. The improved VSC strategy is made robust to the parameters of the algorithm and verified by the computer simulation as well as the hard-in-loop test. The results show that the slip rate can be controlled to a point in the stable area near the optimal slip ratio and the control strategy can effectively realize the anti-lock braking control.

An integrated-electro-hydraulic brake system (I-EHB) is presented to fulfill the requirements of active safety. Because I-EHB can control the brake pressure accurately and fast. Furthermore I-EHB is a decoupled system, so it could make the maximum regenerative braking while offers the same brake pedal feeling and also good for ADAS and unmanned driving application. Based on the analysis of current electrohydraulic brake systems, regulation requirements and the requirements for brake system, the operating mode requirements of I-EHB are formed. Furthermore, system topological structure and a conceptual design are proposed. After the selection of key components, the parameter design is accomplished by modeling the system. According to the above-mentioned design method, an I-EHB prototype and test rig is made. Through the test rig, characteristics of the system are tested. Results show that this I-EHB system responded rapidly.

With the growing prosperity of the long-distance freight and urban logistics industry, the demand for cargo trucks is gradually increasing. The connecting bracket is the critical connecting part of the truck chassis, which bears the load transmitted by the road excitation and reduces the damage to the frame caused by the load. However, the occurrence of rough road conditions is inevitable in heavy-duty transportation. In this paper, road durability tests and fatigue life analysis are carried out on the original structure to ensure the safety of the vehicle. Based on the known boundary and load constraints, a lightweight and high-performance structure is obtained through size optimization, as the original structure cannot meet the performance requirements. Firstly, the road test was conducted on the truck where the original bracket structure is located.

Hydrogen safety is of great importance in proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) systems. Anode pressure control has become a focus point in recent years. The differential pressure between anode and cathode in PEMFC system needs to be carefully controlled under a suitable threshold. In practice, the anode pressure is usually controlled about 20–30kPa higher than the cathode pressure to minimize nitrogen crossover and improve cell stability. High differential pressure could lead to irreversible damage in proton exchange membrane. PID control was the dominant method to control the anode pressure in the past. However, the anode pressure’s fluctuation when hydrogen mass flow suddenly changes is a long-term challenge. As the requirements of control precision are increasingly high, the traditional PID control needs to be improved. Several new control algorithms are presented in recent researches, however, mostly are theoretical and experimental.

Two control strategies, safety preferred control and master cylinder oscillation control, were designed for anti-lock braking on a novel integrated-electro-hydraulic braking system (I-EHB) which has only four solenoid valves in its innovative hydraulic control unit (HCU) instead of eight in a traditional one. The main idea of safety preferred control is to reduce the hydraulic pressure provided by the motor in the master cylinder whenever a wheel tends to be locking even if some of the other wheels may need more braking torque. In contrast, regarding master cylinder oscillation control, a sinusoidal signal is given to the motor making the hydraulic pressure in the master cylinder oscillate in certain frequency and amplitude. Hardware-in-the-loop simulations were conducted to verify the effectiveness of the two control strategies mentioned above and to evaluate them.

It has been revealed by researches that lubricant properties have a great effect on the low-speed pre-ignition (LSPI) frequency in downsizing turbocharged direct-injection engines which are developed for better fuel economy. Droplets of lubricant or lubricant-gasoline mixture are considered to be the potential pre-ignition sources. Those droplets fly into the combustion chamber and ignite the gasoline-air mixture. To study lubricant droplets fundamentally, a novel set of droplet auto-ignition system is designed based on a Dibble Burner for this experiment. Influences of metallic additive contents, viscosities, lubricant diluted with gasoline and waste lubricant on the ignition delay of droplets are investigated by testing 12 groups of lubricants or lubricant-gasoline mixture. The equivalent diameter of each droplet generated by micro-syringes is around 2.1 mm. The co-flow temperature varies from 1123 K to 1223 K, and the experiments are carried out at atmospheric pressure.

Brake judder severely affects the riding comfort and safety of vehicle. For the brake corner system, a rigid-flexible coupling model is established based on ADAMS. In the model, brake pads, caliper, anchor and knuckle are flexible bodies, and the contacts between pads and disc and the contacts between pads and caliper are defined in detail. Meanwhile, the vibration acceleration of the brake corner components and the contact forces between disc and pads are used as evaluation index and the evaluation system of brake judder are improved. The analysis results show that the novel model and evaluation system can be used to predict brake judder effectively.

The prevention and control of brake judder and its various negative effects has been a key target of vehicle production. One of the effects is the steering wheel vibration during vehicle braking. Experimental and theoretical investigation into “steering wheel vibration due to brake judder” is extensively presented in this paper. The vehicle road test is carried out under controlled braking conditions. During the test, the accelerations of brake caliper assembly, suspension low and upper control arm, steering arm, tie rod and steering wheel, left and right wheel rotary speed, are measured by a multi-channel data acquisition system. The data processing focuses on order tracking analysis and transfer path analysis to work out the related resonant components. A disc brake assembly, with deliberately designed disc thickness variation and surface run-out combinations, is tested on a brake dynamometer.

Brake judder affects vehicle safety and comfort, making it a key area of research in brake NVH. Transfer path analysis is effective for analyzing and reducing brake judder. However, current studies mainly focus on passenger cars, with limited investigation into commercial vehicles. The complex chassis structures of commercial vehicles involve multiple transfer paths, resulting in extensive data and testing challenges. This hinders the analysis and suppression of brake judder using transfer path analysis. In this study, we propose a simulation-based method to investigate brake judder transfer paths in commercial vehicles. Firstly, road tests were conducted to investigate the brake judder of commercial vehicles. Time-domain analysis, order characteristics analysis, and transfer function analysis between components were performed.

BBW (Brake-by-wire) can increase the vehicle safety performance due to high control accuracy and fast response speed. As one solution of BBW, the novel Integrated-electro-hydraulic brake system (I-EHB) is proposed, which consists of electro-hydraulic booster and hydraulic pressure control unit. The electro-hydraulic booster is activated by an electric motor that driving linear motion mechanism to directly produce the master cylinder pressure. With electro-hydraulic booster as an actuator, the hydraulic pressure control problem is a key issue. Most literatures deal with the pressure control issue based on the feedback pressure signal measured by pressure sensor. As far as the authors are aware, none of the proposed techniques takes into account the pressure sensor unequipped BBW. In this paper, there is no pressure feedback signal, but there is only position feedback signal measured by position sensor for control law design.

Combustion and emission characteristics of diesel and biodiesel blends (soybean methyl ester) were studied in a single-cylinder Direct Injection (DI) engine at different loads and a constant speed. The results show that NOx emission and fuel consumption are increased with increasing biodiesel percentage. Reduction of smoke opacity is significant at higher loads with a higher biodiesel ratio. Compared with the baseline diesel fuel, B20 (20% biodiesel) has a slight increase of NOx emission and similar fuel consumption. Smoke emission of B20 is close to that of diesel fuel. Results of combustion analysis indicate that start of combustion (SOC) for biodiesel blends is earlier than that for diesel. Higher biodiesel percentage results in earlier SOC. Earlier SOC for biodiesel blends is due to advanced injection timing from higher density and bulk modulus and lower ignition delay from higher cetane number.

In this paper, the characteristics of performance and emissions of diesel and biodiesel blends are studied in a four-cylinder DI engine employing common rail injection system. The results show that engine output power is further reduced and brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) increased with the increase of the blend concentration. B100 provides average reduction by 8.6% in power and increase by 11% in BSFC. With respect to the emissions, although NOx emissions were increased with increasing the blend concentration, the increase depends on the load. Filter smoke number is reduced with increasing the blend concentration. At the same time, NO, NO2 and other specific emissions are also investigated. In addition, difference of performance and emission between standard parameters of ECU and modified parameters of ECU is investigated for B10 and B20 based on same output power. The results show that NOx emission and FSN are still lower than baseline diesel.

In this paper, characteristics of gas emission and particle size distribution are investigated in a common rail diesel engine fueled with biodiesel blends. Gas emission and particle size distribution are measured by AVL FTIR - SESAM and SMPS respectively. The results show that although biodiesel blends would result in higher NOx emissions, characteristics of NOx emissions were also dependent on the engine load for waste cooking oil methyl ester. Higher blend concentration results in higher NO2 emission after two diesel oxidation catalyst s (DOC). A higher blend concentration leads to lower CO and SO2 emissions. No significant difference of Alkene emission is found among biodiesel blends. The particle size distributions of diesel exhaust aerosol consist of a nucleation mode (NM) with a peak below 50N• m and an accumulation mode with a peak above 50N • m. B100 will result in lower particulates with the absence of NM.

The First Firing Cycle (FFC) is very important at cold-start. Misfiring of the first firing cycle can lead to significant HC emissions and affect the subsequent cycles. This paper presents an investigation of characteristics of transient NO emissions in a small LPG SI engine with electronic gaseous injection system. To determine the optimal excess air coefficient ( λ=[A/F]/[A/F]stoic) of the first firing cycle, the emission of instantaneous NO was proposed as a useful criterion to judge if the combustion is occurred or not. A fast response NO detector- Cambustion fNOx400, based on the chemiluminescence's (CLD) method, has been employed to measure continuous, transient emissions of NO during the first firing cycle in the exhaust port of the engine. At the same time, the transient cylinder pressure, instantaneous crankshaft speed of the engine and engine-out HC emissions were measured and recorded.

In order to improve the robustness and stability of autonomous vehicle at high speed, a path tracking approach which combines front steering and differential braking is investigated in this paper. A bicycle model with 3-DOFs is established and a linear time-varying predictive model using front steering as its control input can be derived. Based on model predictive theory, the path tracking issue using linear time-varying model predictive control can be transformed into an online quadratic programming problem with constraints. The expected front steering angle can be obtained from online moving optimization. Then the direct yawing control is adopted to treat two types of differential braking control. The first one investigates steady-state gain of yaw rate in linear 2-DOFs vehicle model, and designs a stable differential braking controller which is based on reference yaw rate.

During a car launch, the driving torque from driveline acts on brake disk, and may lead the pad to slip against the disk. Especially with slow brake pedal release, there is still brake torque applies on the disk, which will retard the rotation of disk, and under certain conditions, the disk and pad may stick again, so the reciprocated stick and slip can induce the noise and vibration, which can be transmitted to a passenger by both tactile and aural paths, this phenomenon is defined as brake groan. In this paper, we propose a nonlinear dynamics model of brake for bidirectional, and with 7 Degrees of Freedom (DOFs), and phase locus and Lyapunov Second Method are utilized to study the mechanism of groan. Time-frequency analysis method then is adopted to analyze the simulation results, meanwhile a test car is operated under corresponding conditions, and the test signals are sampled and then processed to acquire the features.