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Research of Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) is an important issue of intelligent vehicle (IV). As we all known, a real and experienced driver can control vehicle's speed very well under every traffic environment of ACC working. So a direct and feasible way for establishing ACC controller is to build a human-like longitudinal control algorithm with the simulation of driver behavior of speed control. In this paper, a novel fuzzy self-tuning control algorithm of ACC is established and this controller's parameters can be tuned on-line based on the evaluation indexes that can describe how the driver consider the quality of dynamical characteristic of vehicle longitudinal dynamics. With the advantage of the controller's parameter on-line self-tuning, the computational workload from matching design of ACC controller is also efficiently reduced.

A HIL simulator for developing vehicle adaptive cruise control systems is presented in this paper. The xPC target is used to establish real-time simulation environment. The simulator is composed of a virtual vehicle model, real components of an ACC system like ECU, electronic throttle and braking modulator, a user interface to facilitate simulation, and brake and accelerator pedals to make interactive driver inputs easier. The vehicle model is validated against data from field test. Tests of an ACC controller in the real-time are conducted on the simulator.

Tracked vehicles are widely used for agriculture, construction and many other areas. Due to high emissions, hybrid electric driveline has been applied to tracked vehicles. The hybrid powertrain design for the tracked vehicle has been researched for years. Different from wheeled vehicles, the tracked vehicle not only requires high mobility while straight driving, but also pursues strong steering performance. The paper takes the hybrid track-type dozers (TTDs) as an example and proposes an optimal design of a novel power-split powertrain for TTDs. The commercial hybrid TTD usually adopts the series hybrid powertrain, and sometimes with an extra steering mechanism, which has led to low efficiency and made the structure more complicated. The proposed three-planetary-gear power-split hybrid powertrain can overcome the problems above by utilizing the characteristics of planetary gear sets.

As vehicle systems constantly grow in complexity and are subject to higher demands on performance, distributed control has become mainstream application in automotive industry. In a distributed control system, communication network connecting local controllers plays an important role. In this article, a fuel cell bus control system under development is introduced first. And then, traditional CAN and TTCAN network are analyzed for real-time performance respectively and TTCAN is chosen for its superiority. Subsequently, a TTCAN network is designed and implemented. Finally, a test platform for TTCAN network is devised and relevant platform experiments and on-board validation on the network are discussed.

The objective of the research into modeling and simulation was to provide an improvement to the Wayne State EcoCAR 2 team’s math-based modeling and simulation tools for hybrid electric vehicle powertrain analysis, with a goal of improving the simulation results to be less than 10% error to experimental data. The team used the modeling and simulation tools for evaluating different outcomes based on hybrid powertrain architecture changes (hardware), and controls code development and testing (software). The first step was model validation to experimental data, as the plant models had not yet been validated. This paper includes the results of the team’s work in the U.S. Department of Energy’s EcoCAR 2 Advanced vehicle Technical Competition for university student teams to create and test a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle for reducing petroleum oil consumption, pollutant emissions, and Green House Gas (GHG) emissions.

Vehicle lane keeping system is becoming a new research focus of drive assistant system except adaptive cruise control system. As we all known, vehicle lateral dynamics show strong nonlinear and time-varying with the variety of longitudinal velocity, especially tire’s mechanics characteristic will change from linear characteristic under low speed to strong nonlinear under high speed. For this reason, the traditional PID controller and even self-tuning PID controller, which need to know a precise vehicle lateral dynamics model to adjust the control parameter, are too difficult to get enough accuracy and the ideal control quality. Based on neural network’s ability of self-learning, adaptive and approximate to any nonlinear function, an adaptive PID control algorithm with BP neural network self-tuning online was proposed for vehicle lane keeping.

It's important to monitor the longitudinal friction at the tire/road interface for automotive dynamic control systems like ABS and ASR. Of all the tire friction models the empirical model provides a good illustration on longitudinal wheel forces. An improved exponential friction model based on vehicle driving states was proposed in this paper, the model can monitor the friction characteristics between the tire and road surface for longitudinal braking. Its validity was proven using experiments and comparison with the Pacejka Magic Formula (MF) model and others.

This paper presents experimental investigations of diagnosing and analyzing the low-frequency, low- SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio) noise sources of three motorcycles using a hybrid technology that consists of a passive SODAR (Sonic Detection And Ranging) and modified HELS (Helmholtz Equation Least Squares) methods. The former enables one to determine the precise locations of multiple sound sources in 3D space simultaneously over the entire frequency range that is consistent with a measurement microphone in non-ideal environment, where there are random background noise and unknown interfering signals. The latter enables one to reconstruct all acoustic quantities such as the acoustic pressure, acoustic intensity, time-averaged acoustic power, radiation patterns, and sound transmission paths through arbitrarily shaped vibrating structures.

In order to improve the drivability and reduce the clutch friction loss, low-cost slope sensor is used in hill-start control of AMT vehicles. After the power spectrum analysis of the original signal and the design of the digital filter, the angle of the slope is obtained with short enough delay and small enough noise. By using this slope angle information, slope resistance force can be calculated online so that the vehicle can be prevented from sliding backward and optimal launch control can be realized. The digital filter of slope angle signal and the optimal controller of dry clutch engagement are embedded in the TCU (Transmission Control Unit) of a micro-car Geely Panda. Real-vehicle experiments are carried out with optimal clutch controller, which shows that the hill-start with low-cost slope sensor and optimal clutch controller can provide successful vehicle launch with little driveline shock. In addition, it can also avoid backward sliding and engine over-speed effectively.

Safety of buses is crucial because of the large proportion of the public transportation sector they constitute. To improve bus safety levels, especially to avoid driver error, which is a key factor in traffic accidents, we designed and implemented an intelligent bus called iBus. A robust system architecture is crucial to iBus. Thus, in this paper, a novel self-driving system architecture with improved robustness, such as to failure of hardware (including sensors and controllers), is proposed. Unlike other self-driving vehicles that operate either in manual driving mode or in self-driving mode, iBus offers a dual-control mode. More specifically, an online hot standby mechanism is incorporated to enhance the reliability of the control system, and a software monitor is implemented to ensure that all software modules function appropriately. The results of real-world road tests conducted to validate the feasibility of the overall system confirm that iBus is reliable and robust.

The ability of actively adjusting attitude provides a great advantage for those vehicles used in special environments such as off-road environment with extreme terrains and obstacles. It can improve vehicles’ stability and performance. This paper proposes an attitude control system for realizing the active attitude adjustment and vehicle motion control in the same time. The study is based on a vehicle with six wheel independent drive and six independent suspensions (6WIDIS), which is a kind of unmanned vehicle with six in-wheel drives and six independent hydro pneumatic suspensions. With the hydro- pneumatic suspensions, the vehicle’s attitude can be actively adjusted. This paper develops a centralized- distributed control strategy with attitude information obtained by multi-sensor fusion, which can coordinate the complex relationship among the six wheels and suspensions. The attitude control system consists of three parts.

A program of integrated electro-hydraulic braking system is proposed, and its structural composition and working principle are analyzed. According to the structural and mechanical characteristics of all key components, through some reasonable assumptions and simplifications, a motor, a brake master cylinder, four brake wheel cylinders, solenoid valves and an ESP (Electronic Stability Program) algorithm model is set up and simulations of typical braking conditions are carried out based on the Matlab/Simulink. Finally, after the assembly of each sub-model is complete and combining a vehicle which is set up in CarSim software environment, simulation tests and comprehensive performance analysis of the active safety stability control for a vehicle in double lane change and single lane change situations are carried out respectively. According to the dynamic characteristic curves of system, the effects of different structural and control parameters on braking performance are analyzed.

This paper details the development of the control algorithms to characterize the behavior of an electrohydraulic actuated dry clutch used in the powertrain of the Wayne State University EcoCAR 3 Pre-Transmission Parallel hybrid vehicle. The paper describes the methodology and processes behind the development of the clutch physical model and electronic control unit to support the calibration of the vehicle’s hybrid supervisory controller. The EcoCAR 3 competition challenges sixteen North American universities to re-engineer the 2016 Chevrolet Camaro to reduce its environmental impact without compromising its performance and consumer acceptability. The team is in final stages of Year Two competition, which focuses on the powertrain components integration into the selected hybrid architecture. The dry clutch used by the team to enable the coupling between the engine and the electric motor is a key component of the Pre-Transmission Parallel configuration.

The electronic control system of the variable nozzle turbocharger (VNT) was designed. The actuator is the electro-hydraulic servo proportional solenoid. The signals of the engine pedal position sensor, the engine speed sensor, the boost pressure sensor, the intake air temperature sensor, and the ambient pressure sensor are sampled and filtered. The engine working condition is estimated. The control algorithm was designed as the closed-loop feedback digital PI control together with the open-loop feed forward control. The gain-scheduled PI control method is applied to improve the robustness. The control system was calibrated at the turbocharger test bench and the engine test bench. The results indicate the designed control system has good performance for the boost pressure control under the steady and transient conditions.

This paper developed a control system for the auxiliary power unit (APU) in off-road series hybrid electric special vehicle. A control system configuration was designed according to the requirements of the high voltage system in series hybrid electric special vehicle. Then optimal engine operating areas were defined. A gain scheduling engine speed PI controller was designed based on these areas. A closed loop voltage regulator was designed for the synchronous generator. The proposed control system was first validated on an APU control test bench. The test results showed the control system guaranteed the diesel APU good dynamic response characteristics while remaining stable output voltage. Finally, the APU control system was implemented on a diesel APU in an off-road series hybrid electric vehicle and a road test was conducted. The road test results showed the APU control system promised good performance in both vehicle dynamics and vehicle high voltage system.

Traffic congestions are increasingly severe in urban areas, especially at the merging areas of the ramps and the arterial roads. Because of the complex conflict relationship of the vehicles in ramps and arterial roads in terms of time-spatial constraints, it is challenging to coordinate the motion of these vehicles, which may easily cause congestions at the merging areas. The connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) provides potential opportunities to solve this problem. A centralized merging control method for CAVs is proposed in this paper, which can organize the traffic movements in merging areas efficiently and safely. In this method, the merging control model is built to formulate the vehicle coordination problem in merging areas, which is then transformed to the discrete nonlinear optimization form. A simulation model is built to verify the proposed method.

In recent years, Magneto-rheological (MR) fluid has drawn a lot of attention for its applications in a variety of torque transmission devices, such as brakes, clutches and soft starters of mechanical equipment. Compared with the conventional clutch of vehicle, the novel MR clutch has the advantages of fast response with electronic signal, accuracy control and simple structure without mechanical wear in plates. Besides, MR clutch may be helpful to fast response of vehicle in some situation. Nowadays, most applications of MR fluids in the torque transmission field mainly are used in low-power situation. As far as we know, the proposed effective methods enhancing the output torque of MR devices will increase either the number of fluid gaps or the magnetic field in the MR fluid. This article presents a novel vehicle clutch utilizing magnetorheological fluid and multiple-disc structure.

The new control algorithm for parallel hybrid electric vehicle is presented systematically, in which engine operation points are limited within higher efficient area by the control algorithm and the state of charge (SOC) is limited in a range in order to enhance the batteries' charging and discharging efficiency. In order to determine the ideal operating point of the vehicle's engine, the control strategy uses a lookup table to determine the torque output of the engine. The off-line simulation model of parallel HEV power train is developed which includes the control system and controlled objective (such as engine, electric motor, battery pack and so on). The results show that the control algorithm can effectively limite engine and battery operation points and much more fuel economy can be achieved than that of conventional one.

Due to the extended range hybrid vehicle powertrain system having multivariable and non-linear characters, this paper proposed a real-time simulation development platform scheme based on model design. First, a segmented energy management strategy (thermostat + power following) was proposed, which aims to improve the engine operation efficiency and reduce the losses during both charging and discharging. Second, the offline simulation model of the extended range hybrid vehicle powertrain system is established, which can realize the control function and meet the requirements of the real vehicle. Third, the hardware in the loop simulation platform of the vehicle controller is established, and the vehicle control program can run correctly in the real-time controller. The test of the offline simulation by Matlab/Simulink and the controller’s hardware in the loop (HIL) test are completed.

This study examines clutch-damper subsystem dynamics under transient excitation and validates predictions using a new laboratory experiment (which is the subject of a companion paper). The proposed models include multi-staged stiffness and hysteresis elements as well as spline nonlinearities. Several example cases such as two high (or low) hysteresis clutches in series with a pre-damper are considered. First, detailed multi-degree of freedom nonlinear models are constructed, and their time domain predictions are validated by analogous measurements. Second, key damping sources that affect transient events are identified and appropriate models or parameters are selected or justified. Finally, torque impulses are evaluated using metrics, and their effects on driveline dynamics are quantified. Dynamic interactions between clutch-damper and spline backlash nonlinearities are briefly discussed.