AUTOCOM - Automotive Controls and Mechatronic Research Center For Actively Safe,Clean and Efficient Road Vehicles- the AUTOCOM Center
Overview
Background & policy context:
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 Centre (Acronym: AUTOCOM) of Istanbul Technical University was established with a three year EU FP6 SSA project (INCO project no. 16426) as a Centre of Excellence on May 1, 2005. The AUTOCOM project is 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 inEurope. The aim of the AUTOCOM project was to make the Automotive Controls Research Group (ACRG) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Istanbul Technical University an excellent Automotive Controls and Mechatronics (Acronym: 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:
- preventive and active safety control systems;
- powertrain modelling, control and hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) testing; and
- hybrid electric vehicle modelling and control.
The project addresses '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 Framework Programme 6.
Objectives:
The main objective of the project coud be summarised as making the Automotive Controls Research Group (ACRG) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Istanbul Technical University (ITÜ) an excellent Automotive Controls and Mechatronics (Acronym: 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. This main objective was achieved through several sub-objectives.
These sub-objectives and their measurable outcomes were:
- achieve a higher level of contribution to RTD capacity inTurkeyand in the EU;
- to improve networking with other research centres inEurope– In this context, we cooperated with several European universities and research centres on diesel engine modelling and control, on engine modelling for control applications, on modelling and control of hybrid vehicles, on preventive/active safety systems and intelligent transportation systems and on driveline modelling;
- to send Ph.D. students and post-doctoral researchers to other centres for training and experiments;
- to organise three workshops on:
- preventive and Active Safety Systems for Road Vehicles;
- powertrain Modelling, Control and HiL Testing;
- hybrid Electric Vehicle Modelling and Control. These workshops were held inTurkey and will all involved either a visit to the centre or a presentation on the centre and a separate session devoted to exploring future research and development cooperation possibilities. EU officials in the relevant program were invited to the latter session.
- to visit other centres for cooperative activities and joint RTD proposal preparation – Selected researchers in the centre visited selected European universities and research centres.
- to hire two young researchers at the post-doctoral level and three young researchers at the doctoral student or engineer level;
- to renew selected S&T equipment in ACRG-ITÜ.
Methodology:
The project was split into several tasks as follows:
- preventive and active safety;
- hybrid electric vehicle modelling and control;
- powertrain modelling, control and hardware in the loop simulation.
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