Development of Motor and Controller for VVA Module of Gasoline Vehicle

Due to environmental concerns, the recent regulation on automobile fuel economy has been strengthened. The market demand for efficient vehicles is growing and automakers to improve engine fuel efficiency in the industry have been paying a lot of effort. To improve the fuel efficiency, it is necessary to reduce losses or to improve combustion efficiency of the engine. VVA (Variable Valve Actuation) technology enhances the engine's intake air flow, reduce pumping losses and mechanical friction losses. And also, VVA technology is the engine's low speed and high speed operation to implement each of appropriate valve lift. It improves the performance of engine in the entire operating range. This paper presents a design procedure of DC motor and drive for VVA system and shows the validity of the design result by experimental result with prototype.

Virtual Environments...Vehicle for Pedagogical Advancement

Virtual environments are a hot topic in academia and more importantly in courses offered via distance education. Today-s gaming generation view virtual worlds as strong social and interactive mediums for communicating and socializing. And while institutions of higher education are challenged with increasing enrollment while balancing budget cuts, offering effective courses via distance education become a valid option. Educators can utilize virtual worlds to offer students an enhanced learning environment which has the power to alleviate feelings of isolation through the promotion of communication, interaction, collaboration, teamwork, feedback, engagement and constructivists learning activities. This paper focuses on the use of virtual environments to facilitate interaction in distance education courses so as to produce positive learning outcomes for students. Furthermore, the instructional strategies were reviewed and discussed for use in virtual worlds to enhance learning within a social context.

Development of a Novel Pneumatic Hybrid Engine

Although electrical motors are still the main devices used in vehicular exhaust comprises more than 95 percent of the air pollution in Taiwan's largest city, Taipei. On average, all commuters in Taipei travel 13.6 km daily, while motorcycle commuters travel 12.2 km. The convenience and mobility of motorcycles makes them irreplaceable in Taiwan city traffic but they add significantly to air pollution problems. In order to improve air pollution conditions, some new types of vehicles have been proposed, such as fuel cell driven and hybrid energy vehicles. In this study, we develop a model pneumatic hybrid motorcycle system and simulate its acceleration and mileage (km/L) performance. The results show that the pneumatic hybrid motorcycle can improve efficiency.

Anticipating Action Decisions of Automated Guided Vehicle in an Autonomous Decentralized Flexible Manufacturing System

Nowadays the market for industrial companies is becoming more and more globalized and highly competitive, forcing them to shorten the duration of the manufacturing system development time in order to reduce the time to market. In order to achieve this target, the hierarchical systems used in previous manufacturing systems are not enough because they cannot deal effectively with unexpected situations. To achieve flexibility in manufacturing systems, the concept of an Autonomous Decentralized Flexible Manufacturing System (AD-FMS) is useful. In this paper, we introduce a hypothetical reasoning based algorithm called the Algorithm for Future Anticipative Reasoning (AFAR) which is able to decide on a conceivable next action of an Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) that works autonomously in the AD-FMS.

ANN Models for Microstrip Line Synthesis and Analysis

Microstrip lines, widely used for good reason, are broadband in frequency and provide circuits that are compact and light in weight. They are generally economical to produce since they are readily adaptable to hybrid and monolithic integrated circuit (IC) fabrication technologies at RF and microwave frequencies. Although, the existing EM simulation models used for the synthesis and analysis of microstrip lines are reasonably accurate, they are computationally intensive and time consuming. Neural networks recently gained attention as fast and flexible vehicles to microwave modeling, simulation and optimization. After learning and abstracting from microwave data, through a process called training, neural network models are used during microwave design to provide instant answers to the task learned.This paper presents simple and accurate ANN models for the synthesis and analysis of Microstrip lines to more accurately compute the characteristic parameters and the physical dimensions respectively for the required design specifications.

An Enhanced Situational Awareness of AUV's Mission by Multirate Neural Control

This paper focuses on a critical component of the situational awareness (SA), the neural control of depth flight of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). Constant depth flight is a challenging but important task for AUVs to achieve high level of autonomy under adverse conditions. With the SA strategy, we proposed a multirate neural control of an AUV trajectory using neural network model reference controller for a nontrivial mid-small size AUV "r2D4" stochastic model. This control system has been demonstrated and evaluated by simulation of diving maneuvers using software package Simulink. From the simulation results it can be seen that the chosen AUV model is stable in the presence of high noise, and also can be concluded that the fast SA of similar AUV systems with economy in energy of batteries can be asserted during the underwater missions in search-and-rescue operations.

PoPCoRN: A Power-Aware Periodic Surveillance Scheme in Convex Region using Wireless Mobile Sensor Networks

In this paper, the periodic surveillance scheme has been proposed for any convex region using mobile wireless sensor nodes. A sensor network typically consists of fixed number of sensor nodes which report the measurements of sensed data such as temperature, pressure, humidity, etc., of its immediate proximity (the area within its sensing range). For the purpose of sensing an area of interest, there are adequate number of fixed sensor nodes required to cover the entire region of interest. It implies that the number of fixed sensor nodes required to cover a given area will depend on the sensing range of the sensor as well as deployment strategies employed. It is assumed that the sensors to be mobile within the region of surveillance, can be mounted on moving bodies like robots or vehicle. Therefore, in our scheme, the surveillance time period determines the number of sensor nodes required to be deployed in the region of interest. The proposed scheme comprises of three algorithms namely: Hexagonalization, Clustering, and Scheduling, The first algorithm partitions the coverage area into fixed sized hexagons that approximate the sensing range (cell) of individual sensor node. The clustering algorithm groups the cells into clusters, each of which will be covered by a single sensor node. The later determines a schedule for each sensor to serve its respective cluster. Each sensor node traverses all the cells belonging to the cluster assigned to it by oscillating between the first and the last cell for the duration of its life time. Simulation results show that our scheme provides full coverage within a given period of time using few sensors with minimum movement, less power consumption, and relatively less infrastructure cost.

An Approximate Engineering Method for Aerodynamic Heating Solution around Blunt Body Nose

This paper is devoted to predict laminar and turbulent heating rates around blunt re-entry spacecraft at hypersonic conditions. Heating calculation of a hypersonic body is normally performed during the critical part of its flight trajectory. The procedure is of an inverse method, where a shock wave is assumed, and the body shape that supports this shock, as well as the flowfield between the shock and body, are calculated. For simplicity the normal momentum equation is replaced with a second order pressure relation; this simplification significantly reduces computation time. The geometries specified in this research, are parabola and ellipsoids which may have conical after bodies. An excellent agreement is observed between the results obtained in this paper and those calculated by others- research. Since this method is much faster than Navier-Stokes solutions, it can be used in preliminary design, parametric study of hypersonic vehicles.

Do Firms Need Strategic Alliances?

This study develops a relation to explore the factors influencing management and technology capabilities in strategic alliances. Alliances between firms are recognizing increasingly popular as a vehicle to create and extract greater value from the market. Firm’s alliance can be described as the collaborative problem solving process to solve problems jointly. This study starts from research questions what factors of firm’s management and technology characteristics affect performance of firms which are formed alliances. In this study, we investigated the effect of strategic alliances on company performance. That is, we try to identify whether firms made an alliance with other organizations are differed by characteristics of management and technology. And we test that alliance type and alliance experiences moderate the relationship between firm’s capabilities and its performance. We employ problem-solving perspective and resource-based view perspective to shed light on this research questions. The empirical work is based on the Survey of Business Activities conducted from2006 to 2008 by Statistics Korea. We verify correlations between to point out that these results contribute new empirical evidence on the effect of strategic alliances on company performance.

Thermal Post-buckling of Shape Memory Alloy Composite Plates under Non-uniform Temperature Distribution

Aerospace vehicles are subjected to non-uniform thermal loading that may cause thermal buckling. A study was conducted on the thermal post-buckling of shape memory alloy composite plates subjected to the non-uniform tent-like temperature field. The shape memory alloy wires were embedded within the laminated composite plates to add recovery stress to the plates. The non-linear finite element model that considered the recovery stress of the shape memory alloy and temperature dependent properties of the shape memory alloy and composite matrix along with its source codes were developed. It was found that the post-buckling paths of the shape memory alloy composite plates subjected to various tentlike temperature fields were stable within the studied temperature range. The addition of shape memory alloy wires to the composite plates was found to significantly improve the post-buckling behavior of laminated composite plates under non-uniform temperature distribution.

Fuel Economy and Stability Enhancement of the Hybrid Vehicles by Using Electrical Machines on Non-Driven Wheels

Using electrical machine in conventional vehicles, also called hybrid vehicles, has become a promising control scheme that enables some manners for fuel economy and driver assist for better stability. In this paper, vehicle stability control, fuel economy and Driving/Regeneration braking for a 4WD hybrid vehicle is investigated by using an electrical machine on each non-driven wheels. In front wheels driven vehicles, fuel economy and regenerative braking can be obtained by summing torques applied on rear wheels. On the other hand, unequal torques applied to rear wheels provides enhanced safety and path correction in steering. In this paper, a model with fourteen degrees of freedom is considered for vehicle body, tires and, suspension systems. Thereafter, powertrain subsystems are modeled. Considering an electrical machine on each rear wheel, a fuzzy controller is designed for each driving, braking, and stability conditions. Another fuzzy controller recognizes the vehicle requirements between the driving/regeneration and stability modes. Intelligent vehicle control to multi objective operation and forward simulation are the paper advantages. For reaching to these aims, power management control and yaw moment control will be done by three fuzzy controllers. Also, the above mentioned goals are weighted by another fuzzy sub-controller base on vehicle dynamic. Finally, Simulations performed in MATLAB/SIMULINK environment show that the proposed structure can enhance the vehicle performance in different modes effectively.

Preliminary Toxicological Evaluations of Polypeptide-K Isolated from Momordica Charantia in Laboratory Rats

This study examined the toxicological effects and safety of polypeptide k isolated from the seeds of Momordica charantia in laboratory rats. 30 male Sprague Dawley rats (12 weeks old, bodyweight 180-200 g) were randomly divided into 3 groups (1000 mg/kg, 500 mg and 0 mg/kg). Rats were acclimatized to laboratory conditions for 7 days and at day 8 rats were dosed orally with polypeptide k (in 2% DMSO/normal saline) and the controls received the dosed vehicle only. Rats were then observed for 72 hours before sacrificed. Rats were anaesthetized by pentobarbital (50 mg/kg ip) and 2-3.0 mL of blood was taken by cardiac puncture and rats were scarified by anaesthetic overdose. Immediately, organs (heart, lungs, liver, kidneys) were weigh and taken for histology. Organ sections were then evaluated by a histopathologist. Serum samples were assayed for liver functions (ALT and γ-GT) and kidney functions (BUN and creatinine). All rats showed normal behavior after the dosing and no statistical changes were observed in all blood parameters and organ weight. Histological examinations revealed normal organ structures. In conclusion, dosing of rats up to 1000 mg/kg did not have any effects on the rat behavior, liver or kidney functions nor histology of the selected organs.

A Performance Evaluation of Cellular Network Suitability for VANET

Recently, a vehicular ad-hoc networks(VANETs) for Intelligent Transport System(ITS) have become able safety and convenience services surpassing the simple services such as an electronic toll collection system. To provide the proper services, VANET needs infrastructure over the country infrastructure. Thus, we have to spend a huge sum of human resources. In this reason, several studies have been made on the usage of cellular networks instead of new protocols this study is to assess a performance evaluation of the cellular network for VANET. In this paper, the result of a for the suitability of cellular networks for VANET experiment, The LTE(Long Term Evolution) of cellular networks found to be most suitable among the others cellular networks

Optimal Design of Airfoil Platform Shapes with High Aspect Ratio Using Genetic Algorithm

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) performing their operations for a long time have been attracting much attention in military and civil aviation industries for the past decade. The applicable field of UAV is changing from the military purpose only to the civil one. Because of their low operation cost, high reliability and the necessity of various application areas, numerous development programs have been initiated around the world. To obtain the optimal solutions of the design variable (i.e., sectional airfoil profile, wing taper ratio and sweep) for high performance of UAVs, both the lift and lift-to-drag ratio are maximized whereas the pitching moment should be minimized, simultaneously. It is found that the lift force and lift-to-drag ratio are linearly dependent and a unique and dominant solution are existed. However, a trade-off phenomenon is observed between the lift-to-drag ratio and pitching moment. As the result of optimization, sixty-five (65) non-dominated Pareto individuals at the cutting edge of design spaces that are decided by airfoil shapes can be obtained.

Fatigue Life of an Anti-Roll Bar of a Passenger Vehicle

In the present paper, Fatigue life assessment of an anti-roll bar component of a passenger vehicle, is investigated by ANSYS 11 software. A stress analysis is also carried out by the finite element technique for the determination of highly stressed regions on the bar. Anti-roll bar is a suspension element used at the front, rear, or at both ends of a car that reduces body roll by resisting any unequal vertical motion between the pair of wheels to which it is connected. As a first stage, fatigue damage models proposed by some well-known references and the corresponding assumptions are discussed and some enhancements are proposed. Then, fracture analysis of an anti-roll bar of an automobile is carried out. The analysed type of the anti-roll bar is especially important as many cases are reported about the fracture after a 100,000 km of travel fatigue and fracture conditions. This paper demonstrates fatigue life of an anti-roll bar and then evaluated by experimental analytically results from other researcher.

Planar Tracking Control of an Underactuated Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

This paper addresses the problem of trajectory tracking control of an underactuated autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) in the horizontal plane. The underwater vehicle under consideration is not actuated in the sway direction, and the system matrices are not assumed to be diagonal and linear, as often found in the literature. In addition, the effect of constant bias of environmental disturbances is considered. Using backstepping techniques and the tracking error dynamics, the system states are stabilized by forcing the tracking errors to an arbitrarily small neighborhood of zero. The effectiveness of the proposed control method is demonstrated through numerical simulations. Simulations are carried out for an experimental vehicle for smooth, inertial, two dimensional (2D) reference trajectories such as constant velocity trajectory (a circle maneuver – constant yaw rate), and time varying velocity trajectory (a sinusoidal path – sinusoidal yaw rate).

Improved Fuzzy Neural Modeling for Underwater Vehicles

The dynamics of the Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are highly nonlinear and time varying and the hydrodynamic coefficients of vehicles are difficult to estimate accurately because of the variations of these coefficients with different navigation conditions and external disturbances. This study presents the on-line system identification of AUV dynamics to obtain the coupled nonlinear dynamic model of AUV as a black box. This black box has an input-output relationship based upon on-line adaptive fuzzy model and adaptive neural fuzzy network (ANFN) model techniques to overcome the uncertain external disturbance and the difficulties of modelling the hydrodynamic forces of the AUVs instead of using the mathematical model with hydrodynamic parameters estimation. The models- parameters are adapted according to the back propagation algorithm based upon the error between the identified model and the actual output of the plant. The proposed ANFN model adopts a functional link neural network (FLNN) as the consequent part of the fuzzy rules. Thus, the consequent part of the ANFN model is a nonlinear combination of input variables. Fuzzy control system is applied to guide and control the AUV using both adaptive models and mathematical model. Simulation results show the superiority of the proposed adaptive neural fuzzy network (ANFN) model in tracking of the behavior of the AUV accurately even in the presence of noise and disturbance.

Optical Road Monitoring of the Future Smart Roads – Preliminary Results

It has been shown that in most accidents the driver is responsible due to being distracted or misjudging the situation. In order to solve such problems research has been dedicated to developing driver assistance systems that are able to monitor the traffic situation around the vehicle. This paper presents methods for recognizing several circumstances on a road. The methods use both the in-vehicle warning systems and the roadside infrastructure. Preliminary evaluation results for fog and ice-on-road detection are presented. The ice detection results are based on data recorded in a test track dedicated to tyre friction testing. The achieved results anticipate that ice detection could work at a performance of 70% detection with the right setup, which is a good foundation for implementation. However, the full benefit of the presented cooperative system is achieved by fusing the outputs of multiple data sources, which is the key point of discussion behind this publication.

Development of Automatic Guided Mobile Robot Using Magnetic Position Meter

In this paper, an automatic guided mobile robot using a new magnetic position meter is described. In order to measure the lateral position of a mobile robot, a new magnetic position meter is developed. The magnetic position meter can detect the position of a magnetic wire on the center of road. A mobile robot in designed with a sensing system, a steering system and a driving system. The designed mobile robot is tested to verify the performance of automatic guidance.

An Analysis of Acoustic Function and Navier-Stokes Equations in Aerodynamic

Acoustic function plays an important role in aerodynamic mechanical engineering. It can classify the kind of air-vehicle such as subsonic or supersonic. Acoustic velocity relates with velocity and Mach number. Mach number relates again acoustic stability or instability condition. Mach number plays an important role in growth or decay in energy system. Acoustic is a function of temperature and temperature is directly proportional to pressure. If we control the pressure, we can control acoustic function. To get pressure stability condition, we apply Navier-Stokes equations.