Search Results

Road traffic accidents resulting from alcohol-impaired driving are increasing globally despite several measures, currently in place, to curb the trend. For this reason, recent research aims at integrating alcohol early-detection systems and driving simulator experiments to identify intoxicated drivers. However, driving simulator experiments on drunk driving have focused mostly on male participants than female drivers whose characteristics have scarcely been explored. Hence in this paper, vehicle dynamic control inputs on steering, braking, and acceleration performance of 75 licensed female drivers with an upshot of alcohol at four different blood alcohol concentration (BAC) levels (0%, 0.03%, 0.05%, and 0.08%) were investigated. The participants completed simulated driving in a fixed-based simulator experiment coupled with real-time ecological scenarios to extract discrete responses.

In these years, the advantages of using phase change material (PCM) in the thermal management of electric power battery has been wide spread. Because of the thermal conductivity of most phase change material (eg.wax) is low, many researchers choose to add high conductivity materials (such as black lead). However, the solid-liquid change material has large mass, poor flow-ability and corrosively. Therefore, it still stays on experiential stage. In this paper, the Thermal characteristics of power battery firstly be invested and the requirements of thermal management system also be discussed. Then a new PCM thermal management has been designed which uses pure water as liquid phase change material, adopts PCM with a reflux device for thermal management.

Typical vehicle speed deceleration occurs at the freeway exit due to the driving direction change. Well conducting the driver to control the velocity could enhance the vehicle maneuverability and give drivers more response time when running into potential dangerous conditions. The freeway exit speed limit sign (ESLS) is an effect way to remind the driver to slow down the vehicle. The ESLS visibility is significant to guarantee the driving safety. This research focuses on the color variable ESLS system, which is placed at the same location with the traditional speed limit sign. With this system, the driver could receive the updated speed limit recommendation in advance and without distraction produced by eyes contract change over the dashboard and the front sight. First, the mathematical model of the drivetrain and the engine brake is built for typical motor vehicles. The vehicle braking characteristics with various initial speeds in the deceleration area are studied.

With the rapid development of the logistics and transportation industry, heavy-duty trucks play an increasingly important role in social life. However, due to the characteristics of large cargo loads, high center of mass and relatively narrow wheelbase, the driving stability of heavy trucks are poor, and it is easy to cause rollover accidents under high-speed driving conditions, large angle steering and emergency obstacle avoidance. To improve the roll stability of heavy trucks, it is necessary to design an active anti-rollover control system, through the analysis of the yaw rate and the load transfer rate of the vehicle, driving states can be estimated during the driving process. Under the intervention of the control system, the lateral transfer rate of heavy trucks can be reduced to correct the driving posture of the vehicle body and reduce the possibility of rollover accidents.

The development of the vehicle quantity and the transportation system accompanies the rise of traffic accidents. Statistics shows that nearly 35-45% traffic accidents are due to drivers’ fatigue. If the driver’s fatigue status could be judged in advance and reminded accurately, the driving safety could be further improved. In this research, the blink frequency and eyes movement information are monitored and the statistical method was used to assess the status of the driving fatigue. The main tasks include locating the edge of the human eyes, obtaining the distance between the upper and lower eyelids for calculating the frequency of the driver's blink. The velocity and position of eyes movement are calculated by detecting the pupils’ movement. The normal eyes movement model is established and the corresponding database is updated constantly by monitoring the driver blink frequency and eyes movement during a certain period of time.

Path planning system, which is one of driver assistance systems, can calculate the driving paths and estimate the driving time through the road information provided by information source. Traditional path planning systems calculate the driving paths through Dijsktra's algorithm or A* algorithm but only consider the road information from electronic maps. It is not safe enough for operating vehicles because of the insufficient information of vehicle performance as well as the driver's willingness. This study is based on the Dijsktra's algorithm, which comprehensively considered vehicular active safety constraints such as road information, vehicle performance and the driver's willingness to optimize the Dijsktra's algorithm. Then the path planning system can calculate the optimal driving paths that would satisfy the safety requirement of the vehicle. This study used LabVIEW as a visual host computer and MATLAB to calculate dynamic property of the vehicle.

Magnetorheological fluid (MRF) is used as the transmission medium of the hydraulic retarder. The rheological properties are regulated by changing the magnetic field to achieve accurate control of the retarder's braking torque. Under the action of the external magnetic field, the flow structure and performance of the MRF retarder will be changed in a short time. The apparent viscosity coefficient increases by several orders of magnitude, the fluidity deteriorates and the heat generated by the brake cannot be transferred through the liquid circulation, which will affect the braking torque of the retarder. Changing the surface area of the stator also has an influence on the braking torque of the retarder and the wall heat dissipation. In this study, the relationship between the braking torque of the MRF retarder and the stator surface area of the retarder was analyzed.

In this research, the Mg2Si1-xSnx thermoelectric material is used in the exhaust temperature difference power-generating system, and the material's heat transfer characteristic and power-generating characteristic were analyzed. Firstly, steady heat transfer model from vehicle exhaust to cooling water was established. Then the impact of Sn/Si ratio to the thermoelectric characteristic parameter was analyzed. Finally, considering the influence of varying thermal conductivity to the heat transfer process along the material's heat transfer direction, when the cold end temperature of thermoelectric materials was controlled by cooling water respectively boiling at 343K and 373K, the thermoelectric conversion efficiency and power output of Mg2Si1-xSnx thermoelectric materials with different x value were evaluated based on simulation calculation.

For the thin ice on the road in winter, the traditional road deicing vehicle relies on mechanical and chemical methods for melting ice, which is inclined to damage the pavement and has insidious influence on environment. The thermal deicing vehicle has been adopted in recent years. Although the deicing method is available, the deicing efficiency is unacceptable while the energy consumption is huge. The study adopts the new idea of “bottom-to-top” for melting the intersection area between the road surface and the bottom ice layer by the microwave heating firstly and then cleaning them out using high pres. vapor cutting so as to save the cost of energy and enhance the traffic safety. First of all, the mathematical model of the melting process of the intersection of the pavement and the ice layer was established according to the microwave heating characteristics.

The heavy-duty vehicles have large transportation capacity. Gross mass and center of gravity position of the heavy-duty vehicles vary with the cargo mass and the driving condition, which affect driving safety and handling stability. Gross mass and center of gravity position of the vehicles are usually measured on fixed test platform, and the vehicles are stationary or pass the platform slowly in the measurement process. Most dynamic weighing system could not measure the center of gravity position of the vehicles. On-board mass and center of gravity of motor vehicles measurement system mainly based on the tire pressure information could measure gross mass and center of gravity position accurately in the driving process. The measurement errors of the sensors are effectively decreased by filtering collected sensor data. The relationship between the tire pressure and the tire load is built when the vehicle is stationary.

The mountainous roads are rugged and complex, so that the driver can not make accurate judgments on dangerous road conditions. In addition, most heavy vehicles have characteristics of large weight and high center of gravity. The two factors above have caused most of the car accidents in mountain areas. A research shows that 90% of car accidents can be avoided if drivers can respond within 2-3 seconds before the accidents happen. This paper proposes a speed warning scheme for heavy-duty vehicle over the horizon in mountainous area, which can give the drivers enough time to respond to the danger. In the early warning aspect, this system combines the front road information, the vehicle characteristics and real-time information obtained from the vehicle, calculates and forecasts the danger that may happen over the horizon ahead of time, and prompts the driver to control the vehicle speed.

In the intelligent speed planning system, real-time estimation of road slope is the key to calculate slope resistance and realize the vehicles’ active safety control. However, if the road slope is measured by the sensor while the commercial vehicle is driving, the vibration of the vehicle body will affect its measurement accuracy. Therefore, the relevant algorithm is used to estimate the real-time slope of the road when the commercial vehicle is driving. At present, many domestic and foreign scholars have analyzed and tested the estimation of road slope by the least square method or Kalman filter algorithm. Although the two methods both can achieve the estimation, the real-time performance and accuracy still need to be improved. In this paper, for traditional fuel commercial vehicle, the Kalman filter algorithm based on the kinematics and the extended Kalman filter algorithm based on the longitudinal dynamics are respectively used to estimate the road slope.

The ride performance and stability of the vehicle will decrease while the vehicle passing a deceleration bump with relatively high speed. If the speed is too low, the road efficiency and ride comfort will be affected. It is essential to identify the proper speed taking into account all the factors. In this paper, the dynamic model of the vehicle passing through the deceleration bump is established. Three kinds of indicators vibration weighted acceleration RMS, maximum vertical vibration acceleration and wheel load impact coefficient, are used to comprehensively evaluate the ride comfort and safety. The highway model, vehicle model, and common trapezoidal cross-sections bump models are set up in Carsim. Parameters such as vertical acceleration and tire force at different vehicle speeds are obtained. Then use the spline interpolation method to fit the data, and comprehensively consider the three indicators to get the best speed.

The thermal management system is essential for the safe and long-term operation of the power battery. The temperature difference between the individual cells exceeds the acceleration of the battery performance, which leads to battery out of use and affects the performance of the vehicle. Compared with the low heat transfer coefficient of the air-cooling system, the complex structure of the liquid-cooling system and the large quality of phase change material system, the heat pipe has high thermal conductivity, strong isothermal performance and light weight, it’s an efficient cooling element that can be used for thermal management. In this study, the flat plate heat pipe(FPHP) is used to manage the temperature of the battery, through experiments, the optimized placement of the flat heat pipe is obtained.

As an important input parameter of intelligent vehicle active safety technology, road adhesion coefficient is of great significance in autonomous collision avoidance, emergency braking and collision avoidance, and variable adhesion road motion control. Traditional recognition methods based on vehicle dynamics require large data volume and low solution accuracy. This paper proposes an adhesion coefficient recognition method based on Elman neural network and Kalman filter. By establishing a seven-degree-of-freedom vehicle dynamics model, dynamic parameters such as yaw angular velocity, longitudinal velocity, lateral velocity, and angular velocity of each wheel, which are easy to measure and strongly related to the road adhesion coefficient, are analyzed as the input of the neural network model.

The tank truck has a wide range of application. When the liquid in the tank is not fully loaded, the lateral movement of the liquid in the tank will shift the center of gravity of the tank truck and make the vehicle less safe. It is easy to roll over when the tank truck is turning. This study combines the vehicle dynamic characteristics and geographic information, which gives the driver safe speed and safe braking distance tips before turning, to reduce the traffic accidents caused by driver's misjudgment. The dynamic model of the tank truck is established, through collecting the real-time information of the vehicle, the vehicle load and braking torque are calculated by the relevant dynamic model. The system needs to measure the deviation of the center of gravity in the tank truck movement process, and the deviation of the center of gravity has a great influence on the safety speed.

In summer, when vehicle parks in direct sunlight, the closed cabin temperature would rise sharply, which affects the occupants step-in-car comfort Solar powered vehicle parking ventilation system adopts the solar energy to drive the original ventilator. Thus, the cabin temperature could be dramatically decreased and the riding comfort could be also improved. This research analyzed the modified crew cabin thermal transfer model. Then the performance of the solar powered ventilation system is analyzed and optimized combined with the power supply characteristics of the photovoltaic element. The storage and reuse of the solar power is achieved on condition that the cabin temperature could be steadily controlled. The research shows that, the internal temperature is mainly affected by the solar radiation intensity and the environment temperature.

Vehicle speed is an important factor to driving safety, which is directly related to the stability and braking performance of the vehicle. Besides, the precise measurement of the vehicle speed is the basis of some vehicle active safety systems. Even in the future intelligent transportation, high quality speed information will also play an important role. The commonly used vehicle speed measurement techniques are based on the wheel speed sensors, which are not accurate, especially when the wheels’ slip rate is not equal to zero. Focusing on these issues, image matching technology has been used to measure the vehicle speed in this paper. The image information of the road in the front of the vehicle is collected, and the pixel displacement of the vehicle is calculated by the matching system, thus accurately vehicle speed can be obtained. Compared with conventional speed measure technology, it has the advantages of wide measuring range, and high accuracy.

Downhill mountain roads are the accident prone sections because of their complexity and variety. Drivers rely more on driving experience and it is very easy to cause traffic accidents due to the negligence or the judgment failure. Traditional active safety systems, such as ABS, having subjecting to the driver's visual feedback, can’t fully guarantee the downhill driving safety in complex terrain environments. To enhance the safety of vehicles in the downhill, this study combines the characteristics of vehicle dynamics and the geographic information. Thus, through which the drivers could obtain the safety speed specified for his/her vehicle in the given downhill terrains and operate in advance to reduce traffic accidents due to driver's judgment failure and avoid the brake overheating and enhance the safety of vehicles in the downhill.