Direct Yaw Moment Control for Distributed Drive Electric Vehicle Handling Performance Improvement

For a distributed drive electric vehicle（DDEV） driven by four in-wheel motors, advanced vehicle dynamic control methods can be realized easily because motors can be controlled independently, quickly and precisely. And direct yaw-moment control（DYC） has been widely studied and applied to vehicle stability control. Good vehicle handling performance： quick yaw rate transient response, small overshoot, high steady yaw rate gain, etc, is required by drivers under normal conditions, which is less concerned, however. Based on the hierarchical control methodology, a novel control system using direct yaw moment control for improving handling performance of a distributed drive electric vehicle especially under normal driving conditions has been proposed. The upper-loop control system consists of two parts： a state feedback controller, which aims to realize the ideal transient response of yaw rate, with a vehicle sideslip angle observer; and a steering wheel angle feedforward controller designed to achieve a desired yaw rate steady gain. Under the restriction of the effect of poles and zeros in the closed-loop transfer function on the system response and the capacity of in-wheel motors, the integrated time and absolute error（ITAE） function is utilized as the cost function in the optimal control to calculate the ideal eigen frequency and damper coefficient of the system and obtain optimal feedback matrix and feedforward matrix. Simulations and experiments with a DDEV under multiple maneuvers are carried out and show the effectiveness of the proposed method： yaw rate rising time is reduced, steady yaw rate gain is increased, vehicle steering characteristic is close to neutral steer and drivers burdens are also reduced. The control system improves vehicle handling performance under normal conditions in both transient and steady response. State feedback control instead of model following control is introduced in the control system so that the sense of control intervention to drivers is relieved.

Heuristics for Improving Operational Performance of Permutation Circulati on-type Vehicle Routing System

This paper discusses an optimization of operating a p ermutation circulation-type vehicle routing system (PCVRS, for short), in w hich several stages are located along by a single loop, and a fleet of vehicles travels on the loop unidirectionally and repeatedly. Traveling on the loop, each vehicle receives an object from the loading stage and then carries it to a cert ain processing stage, or receives an object from a certain processing stage and then carries it to the unloading stage per a turnaround. No passing is allowed f or the vehicles on the loop (from which the system is called permutation, and th is restriction may cause interferences between vehicles). Material handling systems such as PCVRS are actually encountered in flexible man ufacturing systems and in automated storage/retrieval systems. In this paper, we propose a heuristic algorithm for operating the PCVRS, which i ncorporates a new scheduling method for the vehicles with the SPT (shortest proc essing time) numbering of jobs and a round-robin manner of allocating jobs to t he stages, aiming to reduce interferences between the vehicles. We also give num erical results with respect to system performances attained by the heuristic. Description of the system The PCVRS consists of a set of n v vehicles V={V 1,V 2,...,V n v}, a set of n s, processing stages S p={S 1,S 2,...,S n s}, a loading stage S 0 and an unloading stage S n s +1. We denote by S=S p∪{S 0,S n s+l} the set of all the stages. The vehicles travel on a single loop unidirectionany and repeated ly. The system layout is depicted in Fig.1. There is a set of n jobs J={J 1,J 2,...,J n} to be processed b y the vehicles. Each job consists of two tasks: That is, each vehicle receives a n object from S 0 and then carries it to S l with a certain l∈{1,2, ...,n s} (a throw-in job), or receives an object from S l with a certain l∈{1,2,...,n s} and then carries it to S n s+1 (a throw-out job ) per a turnaround. The loop consists of buffer zones BZ(l) and travel zones TZ(l) (see Fig. 1). Each buffer zone BZ(l) is placed in front of stage S l, l=0,1,..., n s, n s+1, in order to avoid a collision between vehicles (i.e., the syste m adopts the so-called zone control strategy). A heuristic algorithm We develop a heuristic algorithm to obtain a good performance for the PCVRS. An operation π={A/B/C} for the PCVRS consists of three decision factors: (A) Numbering jobs Jobs are loaded into S 0 according to an assending order of job numbers. In this paper, we use the following rules to number jobs: SPT: Order jobs in the shortest processing time rule, i.e., P 1≤P 2≤...≤P n for the set of jobs J={J 1,J 2,...,J n}, rather than the FCFS numbering (i.e., number jobs in first-come-first-served order). The SPT rule intends to reduce interferences between two adjacent vehicles at stages. (B) Allocating jobs to stages For the purpose of balancing loads of processing stages, we adopt the following to allocate jobs to the stages: ORDER: Allocate n jobs to n s, processing stages by an in-order manner , i.e., let l(i) be the index of processing stage allocated job J i by ORDER, it holds that l(i)=n s+1-(i-[(i-1)/n s]n s).(1) The ORDER rule intends to process jobs parallel at stages as many as possible. (C) Scheduling vehicles The following method for scheduling vehicles under ORDER rule is already known: Fig.1 The vehicle ro uting system, PCVRS Fig.2 Mean turnaroun d times by heuristics Unchange: Assign n jobs to n v vehicles such that let k(i) be the i ndex of vehicle processing job J i, then k(i)= i-[(i-1)/n v]n v.(2) In csse of n v≥n s, mod (n v,n s)=0 or n v<n s, mod (n s,n v)=0 (mod(x,y) is the remainder of x/y), the number of interferences between vehicles is minimized at stage S 1 under Unchange sche dules, while in the other cases it is not [Lu et al. (2001a)]. Therefore, in t his paper, we develop a new scheduling method of the vehicles, denoted by Ex change, to modify Unchange schedules. Note

MULTITASK SCHEDULING IN NETWORKED CONTROL SYSTEMS WITH APPLICATION TO LARGE SCALE VEHICLE CONTROL

Aiming at scheduling problems of networked control system （NCS） used to fulfill motion synthesis and cooperation control of the distributed multi-mechatronic systems, the differences of network scheduling and task scheduling are compared, and the mathematic description of task scheduling is presented. A performance index function of task scheduling of NCS according to task balance and traffic load matching principles is defined. According to this index, a static scheduling method is designed and implemented to controlling task set simulation of the DCY100 transportation vehicle. The simulation results are applied successfully to practical engineering in this case so as to validate the effectiveness of the proposed performance index and scheduling algorithm.

On a New Method for Evaluation of Wheel Climb Derailment

In the paper, a new derailment index λ for evaluation of wheel climb derailment is proposed which is based on primary suspension forces. It is easy to apply because of its minimum criterion characteristic and can also be applied to explain the reason why wheel climb derailments are almost always accompanied by some wheel unloadings.

Application potential of high performance steels for weight reduction and efficiency increase in commercial vehicles

The fast-growing economy and the gradually established highway system have boosted the road trans- portation for both passenger and cargo over the last decade in China. From 2000 to 2010 Chinese GDP increased by around 10.15% annually and the sales of medium and heavy trucks by around 18.87% （sales increased from 0.2 million in 2000 to 1.3 million in 2010） according to the National Bureau of Statistics of People＇s Republic of China. Today commercial vehicles consume almost the same amount of fuel as pas- senger cars in China although the number of commercial vehicles is only about one fourth of passenger cars. It is estimated that around 50% of imported fuel to China each year will be consumed by vehicle transportation. This si- tuation will worsen fuel shortage problems in the long run and at the same time it is partially responsible for the ever- worsening air pollution in China. Due to the widespread overloading in China, lightweight development in commer- cial vehicles has fallen far behind that of passenger cars with the consequences that Chinese commercial vehicles consume in average about 20% more fuel, especially the heavy trucks, compared to European models. Under these circumstances it is essential to reduce the vehicle fuel consumption and in- crease the transport efficiency. The key solution thereby is to implement lightweight design in commercial vehicles as it has been successfully practiced over the last decade in the passenger cars. This paper summarizes highlights given in presentations during the ＂International seminar on the ap- plication of high strength steels in light weight commercial vehicles＂ with the focus on the development and application of Nb alloyed high performance steels made for lightweight commercial vehicles.

"Weather" transit is reliable? Using AVL data to explore tram performance in Melbourne,Australia

This paper uses automatic vehicle location （AVL） records to investigate the effect of weather conditions on the travel time reliability of on-road rail transit, through a case study of the Melbourne streetcar （tram） network. The datasets available were an extensive historica; AVL dataset as well as weather observations. The sample size used in the analysis included all trips made over a period of five years （2006-2010 inclusive）, during the morning peak （7 am-9 am） for fifteen randomly selected radial tram routes, all traveling to the Melbourne CBD create a linear model Ordinary least square （OLS） regression analysis was conducted to with tram travel time being the dependent variable. An alternative formulation of the model is also compared. Travel time was regressed on various weather effects including precipitation, air temperature, sea level pressure and wind speed; as well as indicator variables for weekends, public holidays and route numbers to investigate a correlation between weather condition and the on-time performance of the trams. The results indicate that only precipitation and air temperature are significant in their effect on tram travel time. The model demonstrates that on average, an additional millimeter of precipitation during the peak period adversely affects the average travel time during that period by approximately 8 s, that is, rainfall tends to increase the travel time. The effect of air temperature is less intuitive, with the model indicating that trams adhere more closely to schedule when the temperature is different in absolute terms to the mean operating conditions （taken as 15 ℃）.