Automotive Systems
Contact persons: Lars Eriksson, Lars Nielsen, Andreas Thomasson
Automotive industry faces challenging tasks. 
Customers have an increasing demand for transport missions and there is also a demand for performance. At the same time the crude oil resources are being depleted. For passenger cars the European Community has proposed a CO2 limit of 120g/km, this will lead to even more focus on downsizing, which will be implemented by turbocharging small engines. For heavy trucks the fuel consumption is not legislated but the drive comes from the customers where it is one of the key figures when investments are being planned, and it is also an area of competition in marketing. Also for diesel engines the use of turbochargers are important for fuel efficient engines with high power/density ratios.
Furthermore, the emission legislations are successively made stricter which reduces the margins and increases the demands on the control systems.
Today the entire powertrain management is central when it comes to achieving the desired performance in terms of emissions, efficiency, and drivability. The demands on the control systems and on their interaction drive the technical development in a direction where previous design compromises are removed giving a more flexible system but also a system that is more complex. Modeling and simulation have evolved to standard engineering tools for analyzing and designing these complex systems, analogously to these developments model-based design methods are promising for giving a path toward efficient parameterization and calibration of future control systems.
Scania CV is the main industrial partner while SAAB Automobile Powertrain was a partner during the first four years. In this area collaboration is planned around the following general areas.
- Modeling and Control of Advanced Turbocharged Engines
- In-Cylinder Sensor Informatics
- Efficient engines
- Control of a driveline with a slipping clutch
- Gear selection control in AMTs (Automated Manual Transmissions)
- Integrated Powertrain Control
- Exhaust after treatment
Two of these have been initiated and more information can be found about them under their respective pages. The other subprojects will be started successively in a dialog within the LINK-SIC center.