It’s been 20 years since Clemson University announced it would establish the International Center for Automotive Research in Greenville.
Since then, the center has been the scene of work to develop the next generation of automotive engineers and vehicles through various research and innovation projects.
Here’s a look at just a few things the center has in the works.
Deep Orange Iteration 15
This spring, graduate students enrolled in Deep Orange, a two-year master’s degree program for automotive engineering at CU-ICAR, began the process of developing the program’s 15th vehicle prototype: a driverless, off-road remote rescue vehicle.
Johnell Brooks, an adviser and faculty lead for Deep Orange, said the goal of the vehicle is to have the capability to go through a challenging environment and terrain for both military and emergency uses.
“When we think about driverless capabilities for a rescue environment, the way that we’re thinking about it right now is that we would have a human drive to that location, but on the trip there, the vehicle would be learning that route,” Brooks explained. “And then if there was a situation where all of the people needed to stay there to help with the rescue, then maybe we could have one person in the back with a patient while the vehicle is driving itself back.”
The 15th vehicle prototype is sponsored by the U.S. Army. This partnership has allowed students to understand the needs of soldiers and the factors that should be considered when designing an autonomous military rescue vehicle, according to Brooks.
“Last semester, we had soldiers come out and bring different vehicles,” he said. “We also had soldiers come out and we walked in the woods around the CU-ICAR campus and then that way the soldiers could point out what is the terrain that they’re driving in when they’re not driving on a road. To be able to say that we’re really having a solider-driven design has been phenomenal.”
The process, however, is only in its conceptual-development stage. Students will begin to design the rescue vehicle this summer and the vehicle prototype should be complete by summer 2024.
“We’re still figuring out what exactly are going to be the capabilities and limitations of this particular vehicle,” Brooks said. “We want to make sure that what we are building our vehicle for is going to make sense in an off-road environment.”
Virtual Prototyping of Ground Systems Center
In partnership with the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Ground Vehicle Systems Center, CU-ICAR’s Virtual Prototyping of Ground Systems Center was established to develop tools to simulate and digitally engineer high-speed, autonomous, off-road vehicles.
Zoran Filipi, founding director of VIPR-GS, said the center was established in response to a transformation underway to modernize military vehicles.
“The key idea behind this center is to basically provide tools and methodologies for visual prototyping on ground vehicles so that the engineers in the future can handle the complexities that arise with the introduction of vehicle autonomy and vehicle electrification,” Filipi said.
The research themes at VIPR-GS include:
- Off-road autonomy
- Propulsion and smart energy
- Digital engineering
Three years since the $58 million virtual prototyping center was founded, VIPR-GS has developed the first generation of the “cyber environment” and methodologies to address the design of complex vehicle systems.
More than 115 Ph.D. and master’s students alongside 65 faculty members currently work on 31 research projects at the center.
“A lot of these students are working either on vehicle autonomy, powertrain systems, control optimization of these complex propulsion systems or prototype digital engineering,” Filipi said. “While we are addressing this critical need advancing the state-of-the-art modeling, simulation and ultimately virtual prototyping on ground vehicles, we are producing this next generation of engineers that will be highly trained in the new areas that are in high demand.”
Hybrid propulsion lab
A new hybrid propulsion research lab at CU-ICAR will allow students and faculty to test the components that would go into a hybrid vehicle or a fully electric vehicle.
“We’re going toward more and more electrified power trains and for some vehicles that means that they will be fully electric,” said Benjamin Lawler, an associate professor of automotive engineering at CU-ICAR. “And that’s mostly going to be more for the light-duty vehicles. As you get into more medium or heavy duty, those will still have to have engines. So think about a Class A truck, meaning an 18-wheeler. You wouldn’t want to make that vehicle an electric vehicle because it would be less efficient to do so.”
To test various engine configurations and different fuels, the lab consists of two rooms:
- The first is dedicated to the engine portion of the hybrid vehicle
- The second will contain the vehicle’s electrical components including the battery pack and electric motor
“The real uniqueness about the facility is that from one control system, we’ll be able to actually coordinate both of these rooms so that it can sort of simulate what would be going on when you have a hybrid vehicle,” Lawler said. “It’ll be as if it’s in a hypothetical vehicle — sometimes we call it a virtual vehicle because the vehicle does exist in a simulation. It just doesn’t exist physically.”
While students will be able to use the lab for various courses, most of the lab’s use will be for research. Lawler said a portion of the lab was funded by the Army, so some of the research will consist of testing hybrid powertrains for military vehicles.
CU-ICAR’s new hybrid propulsion lab is currently in its final stages of development. Lawler said they are just waiting for the final two pieces of electric power equipment to arrive.
AVL DRIVINGCUBE
To advance its autonomous-driving research capabilities, CU-ICAR partnered with AVL, a mobility technology company, to install AVL DRIVINGCUBE equipment at the university’s research center.
“We will be the first installation in North America. They’re now going through the process of installing it,” said Venkat Krovi, a Michelin endowed chair professor of vehicle automation.
Some of the key features of AVL DRIVINGCUBE include:
- Camera stimulator
- Radar stimulator
- Dynamic steering force emulator
- Global navigation satellite system stimulator
The new equipment was added to CU-ICAR’s existing chassis dynamometer — a mechanical device with four fixed rollers for cars to “drive on” — to create virtual scenarios.
Krovi said that the new equipment essentially puts the vehicle “into the matrix” by stimulating its sensory inputs.
“Let’s say we take the camera stream, you can put a screen in front of the vehicle and on that screen, you can play visual scenery from a simulation,” Krovi explained. “The vehicle’s camera basically sees that (environment). You have not changed any of the vehicle’s sensors, but you are creating an environment where the vehicle believes that it’s in a cold, dark place or bright, sunny afternoons on an interstate — all of this while the vehicle thinks it’s going 60 miles an hour.”
Using different simulations, researchers are able to test a vehicle’s autonomy features such as autonomous emergency braking and lane-keeping assist.
