VECTO-HEV - Hybrid Electric Vehicle Controllers in the European HDV CO2 Certification process VECTO via Engineering Release

As of 01/01/2018, the EU will implement a new certification procedure for heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs), which aims to certify the fuel consumption and CO2 emissions and is based on a whole-vehicle simulation in combination with component testing. This is to ensure that each and every specific vehicle sold on the market conforms to standardised fuel consumption and CO2 criteria. As a result of the mandatory implementation of this certification procedure for all European HDV manufacturers, VECTO, the software required for the certification procedure, will become essential for the development process of vehicles and will be used from the earliest stages of product conception onwards to ensure the lowest possible CO2 emission. The fact that VECTO will become a widely used software entails that it can be modified and extended to meet special needs of manufacturers and to ensure and added benefit. By order of the European Commission, the Institute of Internal Combustion Engines and Thermodynamics (IVT) at Graz University of Technology, has done the entire development work of VECTO and thus it is at the moment the only institution that can modify and adapt the source code of the software. This puts the IVT in the unique position to provide profound know-how concerning the VECTO software. There is a specific demand of vehicle manufacturers to extend the existing software with a Software In The Loop (SIL) interfacefor coupling of intelligent hybrid controllers in order to obtain a more realistic picture of the impact of innovative technologies on fuel consumption and emissions and to ensure a positive effect on CO2 certification and real-life operation of vehicles. In order to deploy such a completely new potential development tool, the IVT plans to conduct an exploratory study which entails a demand analysis of the range of functions. The aim is to use the results from the exploratory study to implement an interface into the existing software. The interface is used to install hybrid models for various car classifications and hybrid architectures which are validated by comparison to measured data from real vehicles. These validated models shall be used to further optimise hybrid operational strategies and to depict available potential. The goal of this potential analysis is to reduce energy consumption by 5% and NOx emissions by 40%. Based on the results, the IVT shall plan a new business model for services in connection with VECTO which will lead to new cooperations between the institute and HDV manufacturers and suppliers concerning developmental work. In turn, this will ensure Austria’s position as an excellent research location and will contribute to the expansion of Austria’s competitive edge in the automotive industry.