Safe, Efficient and Intelligent Personal Transport Systems
By Dr Christian Matthews
In the developed world, personal transport systems are dominated by the automobile and while this has provided an unprecedented level of freedom of movement to the average person it has also generated problems. The issues of infrastructure, safety and pollution have in each case, led to progressively tighter legislative requirements designed to reduce the negative impact of road vehicles while maintaining the personal freedoms of citizens. As these requirements tighten, so the solutions necessary to meet them tend to become more complex and will incorporate a greater degree of active control and intervention. In a significant proportion of these systems, automatic control systems have/will become essential for performance requirements to be met and while this technology is hidden from the driver or passengers its impact is not. At present a strategy does exist for planning and prioritisation for the future of personal transport. It is called the ‘Foresight Vehicle’ (www.foresightvehicle.org) and is managed by the SMMT (Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders). This program actively encourages research, and outlines five key areas of development as well as describing a technology roadmap for the next 20 years. The foresight objectives do not focus upon the role of control in emerging vehicle technology, but it is striking that few of the objectives outlined could realistically be achieved without a significant input from the control engineering community. The five key areas are outlined below:
HEAFV – Hybrid Electric and Alternative Fuel Vehicles. EPT - Engine and Powertrain. ASSET – Software, Sensors, Electronics and Telematics. FASMAT – Advanced Structures and Materials. DMaP – Design and Manufacturing Processes
In the context of setting a grand challenge, the Foresight Vehicle provides an excellent starting point, but does not deliver any single idea which could be cited as a grand challenge in its own right. The concept of a grand challenge must therefore be framed in a less prescriptive way. There is however a set of themes which run through the Foresight Vehicle project which may be useful for formulating a grand challenge which is pertinent to the control engineering community. The concept of a vehicle in which all subsystems (propulsion/powertrain, driver assistance, infotainment etc) work closely together to optimise efficiency and safety while interacting in an intelligent way with the road at a local level as well as the surrounding transport system as a whole, seems to be an attractive prospect as well as a big challenge.
Notes: Propulsion. As targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions have become a formalised legislative requirement, the automotive industry as started to acknowledge that an evolutionary approach to the development of internal combustion engines will not deliver the reductions which will be required. This has led to a proliferation of emerging advanced engine technologies which generally require a significant increase in complexity and performance of supervisory control systems. Safety: The reduction of road deaths which has already resulted from a combination of improved vehicle design and road planning will continue. The challenge which will present itself in future systems is for these improvements to be more intelligent through the use of a combination of advanced driver assistance systems along with intelligent traffic control.
At a vehicle level, existing and future driver assistance systems will become more tightly integrated to deliver full vehicle control. This will in itself present safety issues as the driver is taken further from direct control through the use of systems (such as ‘X by Wire’) which must be developed with high safety integrity levels (SIL). This will require well validated, robust, control system design techniques to be applied. As vehicle’s become less likely to be involved in severe accidents, they can be designed accordingly with weight and efficiency