Final Report Summary - AUTOCOM (Automotive Controls and Mechatronics Research Center for Actively Safe, Clean and Efficient Road Vehicles - the AUTOCOM Center)
The automotive area is a vital industry sector with an important economic contribution in Europe. Automotive control and mechatronics is becoming essential in today's and tomorrow's road vehicles for improved road transport safety, reduced pollutant emission levels and fuel economy. Road vehicles are, therefore, becoming truly mechatronic devices loaded with sensors and actuators and control code in a large number of electronic control units, connected over a data bus. There is also a trend towards inter-vehicle and vehicle-infrastructure communication for improved safety and comfort.
Consequently, Europe's current leading position in the automotive sector relies heavily on its taking part in and leading the anticipated developments in the automotive control and mechatronics area.
The Automotive Controls and Mechatronics Research Center (Autocom) of the Istanbul Technical University was established with a three year SSA project as a Centre of Excellence on May 1, 2005. The Autocom project was on contributing to European research and technology development in the automotive control and mechatronics area in order to help achieve safer, cleaner and fuel efficient road vehicles in Europe. The aim of the Autocom project is to make the Automotive Controls Research Group (ACRG) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Istanbul Technical University an excellent automotive control and mechatronics (Autocom) centre for actively safe,clean and efficient road vehicles with an increased research and technological development (RTD) capacity and a higher level of participation in EU funded research activities.
For this purpose, three thrust areas of research capacity reinforcement were identified as:
i) preventive and active safety control systems,
ii) powertrain modelling, control and hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) testing and
iii) hybrid electric vehicle modelling and control. The project addressed integrating and strengthening the ERA in the eSafety subpriority of the IST thematic priority area and the Transport and Integrated Safety subpriorities of the SustDev thematic priority area of the Sixth Framework Programme.
The RTD capacity improvement efforts in the three thrust areas have placed us far beyond the current state of the art in the first thrust area of preventive and active safety control systems, past beyond the current state of the art in hybrid electric vehicle modelling and control and at the current state of the art in powertrain modelling, control and HiL testing. The project team was already very good in the preventive and active safety control systems area. In this area, research work concentrated on ESP, rollover warning and avoidance, adaptive cruise control, stop and go systems, collision warning and avoidance, steering control and semi active suspensions, ITS and intelligent vehicle technologies and active safety using inter-vehicle communication. They are a leading research team which can easily work in European level research projects in our first thrust area of preventive and active safety. They are the best research team in Turkey in this area. At the end of the third and final year of the project, they are past beyond the state of the art in hybrid electric vehicle modelling and control. They have successfully finished the modelling, controller design and controller testing of three hybrid electric vehicle prototypes and two major projects whose results were highly publicised in Turkey (FOHEV-I and FOHEV-II). These prototypes are at the state of the art in the hybrid electric vehicle area and have been found to be very successful. Autocom centre personnel in this thrust area are working on optimisation based strategies and local optimisation based controllers. The second thrust area of powertrain modelling, control and HiL testing is where we have reached the current state of the art.
They have a home developed real time capable crank angle based diesel engine model and a home built HiL testing system for engine ECUs with a home developed faulty signal generation program along with two commercial real time capable diesel engine models. They are working on advanced, model based and calibratable controls for diesel engines.
The project has increased the RTD capacity of the centre in the automotive control and mechatronics area. They already had very close ties with the Turkish automotive industry before the project. The abovementioned RTD capacity improvement made it easier for the centre to conduct research projects for the automotive industry. There are 19 automotive OEMs in Turkey. Turkey is the number 1 bus manufacturer in Europe and one of the largest commercial vehicle manufacturers in Europe. Our ties with the Turkish automotive industry are closer now.
The project resulted in 13 journal and 45 conference papers including submitted ones and 2 edited volumes and several other publications and presentations. 4 M.S. theses and a Ph.D. dissertation were finished. Two press release ceremonies for the FOHEV-I and FOHEV-II (Ford Transit Hybrid Electric Vehicle I, II) projects that the centre takes part in was used to publicise and disseminate our work in the many short news articles in newspapers and automotive magazines in Turkey. News about the project appeared in the project newsletters and automotive related magazines. Several presentations on the centre and its activities were made. Dissemination was also made through the project web site: http://www.autocom.itu.edu.tr
Consequently, Europe's current leading position in the automotive sector relies heavily on its taking part in and leading the anticipated developments in the automotive control and mechatronics area.
The Automotive Controls and Mechatronics Research Center (Autocom) of the Istanbul Technical University was established with a three year SSA project as a Centre of Excellence on May 1, 2005. The Autocom project was on contributing to European research and technology development in the automotive control and mechatronics area in order to help achieve safer, cleaner and fuel efficient road vehicles in Europe. The aim of the Autocom project is to make the Automotive Controls Research Group (ACRG) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Istanbul Technical University an excellent automotive control and mechatronics (Autocom) centre for actively safe,clean and efficient road vehicles with an increased research and technological development (RTD) capacity and a higher level of participation in EU funded research activities.
For this purpose, three thrust areas of research capacity reinforcement were identified as:
i) preventive and active safety control systems,
ii) powertrain modelling, control and hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) testing and
iii) hybrid electric vehicle modelling and control. The project addressed integrating and strengthening the ERA in the eSafety subpriority of the IST thematic priority area and the Transport and Integrated Safety subpriorities of the SustDev thematic priority area of the Sixth Framework Programme.
The RTD capacity improvement efforts in the three thrust areas have placed us far beyond the current state of the art in the first thrust area of preventive and active safety control systems, past beyond the current state of the art in hybrid electric vehicle modelling and control and at the current state of the art in powertrain modelling, control and HiL testing. The project team was already very good in the preventive and active safety control systems area. In this area, research work concentrated on ESP, rollover warning and avoidance, adaptive cruise control, stop and go systems, collision warning and avoidance, steering control and semi active suspensions, ITS and intelligent vehicle technologies and active safety using inter-vehicle communication. They are a leading research team which can easily work in European level research projects in our first thrust area of preventive and active safety. They are the best research team in Turkey in this area. At the end of the third and final year of the project, they are past beyond the state of the art in hybrid electric vehicle modelling and control. They have successfully finished the modelling, controller design and controller testing of three hybrid electric vehicle prototypes and two major projects whose results were highly publicised in Turkey (FOHEV-I and FOHEV-II). These prototypes are at the state of the art in the hybrid electric vehicle area and have been found to be very successful. Autocom centre personnel in this thrust area are working on optimisation based strategies and local optimisation based controllers. The second thrust area of powertrain modelling, control and HiL testing is where we have reached the current state of the art.
They have a home developed real time capable crank angle based diesel engine model and a home built HiL testing system for engine ECUs with a home developed faulty signal generation program along with two commercial real time capable diesel engine models. They are working on advanced, model based and calibratable controls for diesel engines.
The project has increased the RTD capacity of the centre in the automotive control and mechatronics area. They already had very close ties with the Turkish automotive industry before the project. The abovementioned RTD capacity improvement made it easier for the centre to conduct research projects for the automotive industry. There are 19 automotive OEMs in Turkey. Turkey is the number 1 bus manufacturer in Europe and one of the largest commercial vehicle manufacturers in Europe. Our ties with the Turkish automotive industry are closer now.
The project resulted in 13 journal and 45 conference papers including submitted ones and 2 edited volumes and several other publications and presentations. 4 M.S. theses and a Ph.D. dissertation were finished. Two press release ceremonies for the FOHEV-I and FOHEV-II (Ford Transit Hybrid Electric Vehicle I, II) projects that the centre takes part in was used to publicise and disseminate our work in the many short news articles in newspapers and automotive magazines in Turkey. News about the project appeared in the project newsletters and automotive related magazines. Several presentations on the centre and its activities were made. Dissemination was also made through the project web site: http://www.autocom.itu.edu.tr
