Automotive Engineering Commons^™

Evaluating Driving Performance Of A Novel Behavior Planning Model On Connected Autonomous Vehicles, Keyur Shah

Honors Scholar Theses

Many current algorithms and approaches in autonomous driving attempt to solve the "trajectory generation" or "trajectory following” problems: given a target behavior (e.g. stay in the current lane at the speed limit or change lane), what trajectory should the vehicle follow, and what inputs should the driving agent apply to the throttle and brake to achieve this trajectory? In this work, we instead focus on the “behavior planning” problem—specifically, should an autonomous vehicle change lane or keep lane given the current state of the system?

In addition, current theory mainly focuses on single-vehicle systems, where vehicles do not communicate with …

Control And Locomotion Of Inertially And Magnetically Actuated Multi-Scale Robotic Systems, Ehab Al Khatib

Mechanical Engineering Research Theses and Dissertations

In this research, two actuation systems were introduced, inertial and magnetic actuation. In the inertial actuation, the robot used the transfer of momentum to navigate, and this momentum could be generated by spinning masses and wheels. Recent studies in our System Laboratory proved that a wide range of inertially actuated locomotion systems could be generated. This can be achieved by using a family tree approach, starting from a very simple system, and progressively evolving it to more complex ones. The motion diversity of these robots inspired us to extend their locomotion from a macro scale to millimeter and micro scales. …

Active Drag Reduction Of Ground Vehicles Using Air-Jet Wheel Deflectors, Kaloki Nabutola

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Seven turbulence models were used to simulate the flow within the wheelhouse of a simplified vehicle body. The performance of each model was evaluated by comparing the aerodynamic coefficients obtained using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to data collected from wind tunnel experiments. The performance of large eddy simulation (LES) and detached eddy simulation (DES) was largely dependent on the time step and grid size to accurately resolve turbulent eddies. The standard k-e, realizable k-e, k-w, DES, and LES all trended towards a drag coefficient which was 20% lower than the experimental value. In all numerical cases, the lift coefficient was …

Hardware Security Of The Controller Area Network (Can Bus), David Satagaj

Senior Honors Theses

The CAN bus is a multi-master network messaging protocol that is a standard across the vehicular industry to provide intra-vehicular communications. Electronics Control Units within vehicles use this network to exchange critical information to operate the car. With the advent of the internet nearly three decades ago, and an increasingly inter-connected world, it is vital that the security of the CAN bus be addressed and built up to withstand physical and non-physical intrusions with malicious intent. Specifically, this paper looks at the concept of node identifiers and how they allow the strengths of the CAN bus to shine while also …

Nonlinear Least Squares 3-D Geolocation Solutions Using Time Differences Of Arrival, Michael V. Bredemann

Mathematics & Statistics ETDs

This thesis uses a geometric approach to derive and solve nonlinear least squares minimization problems to geolocate a signal source in three dimensions using time differences of arrival at multiple sensor locations. There is no restriction on the maximum number of sensors used. Residual errors reach the numerical limits of machine precision. Symmetric sensor orientations are found that prevent closed form solutions of source locations lying within the null space. Maximum uncertainties in relative sensor positions and time difference of arrivals, required to locate a source within a maximum specified error, are found from these results. Examples illustrate potential requirements …

Fluid Power Vehicle Challenge, Jacob Torrey, Kayla Londono, Bryson Chan, Aaron Trujillo

Mechanical Engineering

The FPVC combines mechanical engineering disciplines to design and manufacture a vehicle that utilizes hydraulic power. The FDR covers the final manufacturing process and verification processes developed during the front end of research and analysis built upon the Critical Design Review (CDR) and the PDR (Preliminary Design Review). This report showcases the design decisions and extensive research that supports the continuing efforts by the Team Pump My Ride, to build upon the accomplishments of Cal Poly’s previous team, The Incompressibles. The FDR presents how Team Pump My Ride produced the design changes from the CDR and PDR to achieve improvements …

Comparison Of Optimal Energy Management Strategies Using Dynamic Programming, Model Predictive Control, And Constant Velocity Prediction, Amol Arvind Patil

Masters Theses

Due to the recent advancements in autonomous vehicle technology, future vehicle velocity predictions are becoming more robust which allows fuel economy (FE) improvements in hybrid electric vehicles through optimal energy management strategies (EMS). A real-world highway drive cycle (DC) and a controls-oriented 2017 Toyota Prius Prime model are used to study potential FE improvements. We proposed three important metrics for comparison: (1) perfect full drive cycle prediction using dynamic programming, (2) 10-second prediction horizon model predictive control (MPC), and (3) 10-second constant velocity prediction. These different velocity predictions are put into an optimal EMS derivation algorithm to derive optimal engine …

Vehicle Performance Analysis Of An Autonomous Electric Shuttle Modified For Wheelchair Accessibility, Johan Fanas Rojas

Masters Theses

Autonomous vehicles (AV) have the potential to vastly improve independent, safe, and cost-effective mobility options for individuals with disabilities. However, accessibility considerations are often overlooked in the early stages of design, resulting in AVs that are inaccessible to people with disabilities. The needs of wheeled mobility device users can cause significant vehicle design changes due to requirements for stepless ingress/egress and increased space for onboard circulation and securement. Vehicles serving people with disabilities typically require costly aftermarket modifications for accessibility, which may have unforeseen impacts on vehicle performance and safety, particularly in the case of automated vehicles. In this research, …

Vehicle Velocity Prediction Using Artificial Neural Networks And Effect Of Real-World Signals On Prediction Window, Tushar Dnyaneshwar Gaikwad

Masters Theses

Prediction of vehicle velocity is essential since it can realize improvements in the fuel economy/energy efficiency, drivability, and safety. Many publications address velocity prediction problems, yet there is a need for the understanding effect of different signals for the prediction. There are numerous new sensor and signal technologies like vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication that can be used to obtain comprehensive datasets. Several references considered deterministic and stochastic approaches that use the datasets as input to determine future operation predictions. These approaches include different traffic models and artificial neural networks such as Markov chain, nonlinear autoregressive model, Gaussian function, and recurrent …

The Future State Of Mobility, Jerome Quandt

Purdue Road School

Formed in 2018, the Illinois Autonomous Vehicles Association (ILAVA) is a privately funded non-for-profit organization focused on establishing thought leadership in the state of Illinois, by identifying and addressing the current and emerging opportunities related to the inevitable growth of CAV technologies throughout the transportation network. Through the deployment of scalable and sustainable business solutions, facilitating industry education and establishing thought leadership, ILAVA is creating an ecosystem that defines Illinois as #TheFutureStateofMobility.

Dartmouth Formula Racing: Full Electric Battery System Design, Matt Gardner, Jacob Hagler, Ruthie Nordhoff, Otto Salmi

ENGS 89/90 Reports

Dartmouth Formula Racing (DFR) lacked an electrical energy storage system that was Formula Hybrid rules-compliant, optimized for FH events, safe, reliable, and integrated with the rest of their vehicle. Additionally, the team lacked the academic and professional resources required to bring a thorough, analytical approach to the design, testing, and documentation of the new storage system. Our team designed and built a Lithium-Ion battery pack (accumulator) containing energy storage, active cooling, battery management and temperature monitoring systems, and control circuitry compatible with DFR’s vehicle. Collaboration throughout design, fabrication, assembly and testing processes ensured effective knowledge transfer to the DFR team.

Dashboard-Mounted Driver Monitoring System, Daniel Lein, Prahlad Sarma, William Roussell, Nathan Nuñez, Elvis Manzanares

ENGS 89/90 Reports

The objective of this project is to deliver safe DMS hardware and interfacing/preprocessing software on which Toyota can run its drowsiness detection neural net. The system shall: securely house all necessary imaging, electronic, and computer hardware to output facial recognition data to the car’s computer, without data input from any other car system; obscure less than 10% of the driver’s field of view out of a standard windshield; be able to capture and process images such that the image classification neural net recognize the images, meeting the top-1 benchmark accuracy statistic across static and dynamic car-cabin lighting conditions; and meet …

Integration Concept Of Injection, Forming And Foaming: A Practical Approach To Manufacture Hybrid Structures, Saeed Farahani, Sai Aditya Pradeep, Srikanth Pilla

Publications

Motivated by the concept of the integrative production systems, the hybrid process of polymer injection molding and sheet metal forming, known as polymer injection forming (PIF), has been introduced to manufacture sheet metal-polymer components in a single operation. Despite the wide potential application of this technology, its implementation in actual industrial production has been hindered due to several challenges; a thick layer of polymer where there is deep deformation, non-uniform deformation due to pressure loss and the opposite phenomena of shrinkage and springback. To mitigate these practical issues, the novel idea of integrating supercritical fluid (Sc.F.) technology with the PIF …

Internal Combustion Engine, Philippe D. Habets, Sam S. Flood, Paing Htet Lin, Jason Wu, Ricardo Cuevas

Mechanical Engineering

The goal of this project is to modify a Honda GX35 engine to improve its fuel efficiency and maximize its competitiveness in the Shell Eco-marathon competitions. This competition has tight restrictions on the type of fuel used to power the engine, but otherwise has very few rules limiting the type of modifications which may be made. Our primary goals are to maximize volumetric efficiency and maintain an efficient operating temperature. Future work might pursue more advanced technologies such as pseudo-atkinson cycle operation.

Simulation And Design Tool For Supermileage Vehicle (Smv) Club Final Design Report, Kimberly Kodama, Sung Ho An, Justice Aragon

Mechanical Engineering

The purpose of this project is to create a sensitivities tool and start an optimization tool to assist the Cal Poly SMV Team in designing their vehicle, developing a driving strategy for competition, and becoming a contender in endurance events. The development of a user-friendly vehicle simulation and design tool was proposed by Professor Joseph Mello who is the club’s advisor. The SMV Team competes in endurance events such as the Supermileage competition or the Shell Eco-marathon with the goal of achieving the best mileage possible.

This report will present the research that has been conducted to understand and define …

Pedestrian Navigation Using Artificial Neural Networks And Classical Filtering Techniques, David J. Ellis

Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this thesis is to explore the improvements achieved through using classical filtering methods with Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for pedestrian navigation techniques. ANN have been improving dramatically in their ability to approximate various functions. These neural network solutions have been able to surpass many classical navigation techniques. However, research using ANN to solve problems appears to be solely focused on the ability of neural networks alone. The combination of ANN with classical filtering methods has the potential to bring beneficial aspects of both techniques to increase accuracy in many different applications. Pedestrian navigation is used as a …

Techniques To Solve Decision-Making Problems, Dilnoz Tulkunovna Muhamediyeva, Bekmuratov Fayzievich Tulkun

Chemical Technology, Control and Management

Solving decision-making problems in poorly formalized systems only with the help of deterministic and probabilistic methods is insufficient. To do this, it is necessary to widely apply the methods of hybrid intelligent systems and, especially, the methods of “soft” calculations (SoftCalculation, SoftComputing) and the directions of ComputationalIntelligence — intelligent computing technologies that are emerging on this theoretical and methodological base. An immune - fuzzy algorithm for the synthesis of fuzzy inference systems (FIS) is proposed. A two-stage adaptive FIS synthesis algorithm is described. At the first stage, the initial fuzzy parameters are clustered in order to reduce the number of …

Electrathon Vehicle: Front Suspension, Christopher Clark

All Undergraduate Projects

Central Washington University does not currently have a competition field-able Electrathon America electric vehicle with adequate front suspension. The aim of this project was to provide the vehicle with handling that supports sound ground contact throughout the competition environment. Handling that supports sound ground contact is important for vehicles so they can go around corners without a loss of traction or flipping over. The solution to this engineering problem was designed and tested through various requirements. The requirements at hand were that the suspension components weigh less than 50 pounds, that there be no more than 3 inches of suspension …

Impact Of Smart Phones’ Interaction Modality On Driving Performance For Conventional And Autonomous Vehicles, Francesca M. Favarò

Mineta Transportation Institute

Distracted driving related to cell phone usage ranks among the top three causes of fatal crashes on the road. Although forty-eight of 50 U.S. states allow the use of personal devices if operated hands-free and secured in the vehicle, scientific studies have yet to quantify the safety improvement presumed to be introduced by voice-to-text interactions. Thus, this study investigated how different modes of interaction of drivers with a smart phone (i.e., manual texting vs. vocal input) affect drivers’ distraction and performance in both conventional and semi-autonomous vehicles. The study was executed in a full-car integrated simulator and tested a population …

Numerical Analyses And Integration Of Split Lot Sizing Using Lean Benchmark Model For Small Lot Manufacturing In High Mix Low Volume Production, Omkar Bhosale

Theses and Dissertations--Manufacturing Systems Engineering

As the global demand for automobiles has increased rapidly over the last fifty years, customers have become more particular about the characteristics of the autos they want. This change in demand, in part has pushed manufacturing to become more flexible and created a demand for alternative, more efficient processes like the High Mix Low Volume (HMLV) production of vehicles. During HMLV, manufacturers create production lot sizes and schedule to synchronize the production processes to meet customer demand on time. The demand for the automobile parts may not be uniform or parts may not be consumed by the customer immediately, Due …