Electric Vehicles (EVs) have gained acceptance as low or zero emission means of transportation. This thesis deals with the design of a battery cell testing platform and Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) battery modeling for EVs. A novel regenerative cell testing platform is developed for cell cycling applications. A 300 W - 5 V cell cycler consisting of a buck and a boost converter is designed. Furthermore, a novel battery modeling approach is proposed to accurately predict the battery performance by dynamically updating the model parameters based on the battery temperature and State of Charge (SOC). The comparison between the experimental and the model simulation results of an automotive cell under real-world drive-cycle illustrates 96.5% accuracy of the model. In addition, the model can be utilized to assess the long-term impact of battery impedance on performance of EVs under real-world drive-cycles.

In this paper, a Multiple Vehicle Routing Problem with Fuel Constraints (MVRPFC) is considered. This problem consists of a field of targets to be visited, and a collection of vehicles with fuel tanks that may visit the targets. Consideration of this problem is mainly in the improvement of feasible solutions, but the following steps are discussed: Cost Matrix Transformation, Field Partitioning, Tour Generation and Rerouting, and Tour Improvement. Four neighborhoods were investigated (2-opt, 3-opt, Target Vehicle Exchange, Depot Exchange), using the Variable Neighborhood Descent and Variable Neighborhood Search schemes, with APD and Voronoi partition methods. These neighborhoods were compared to investigate their performance for various instances using the above schemes and partition methods. In general, 2-opt performed as well as 3-opt in less time than 3-opt; in fact, 3-opt was the slowest of the four neighborhoods. Additionally, the Variable Neighborhood Descent scheme was found to produce better results than the Variable Neighborhood Search.

The research analyzes the operating performance of three vehicle detection technologies for use in the City of Winnipeg. The technologies were: Autoscope Encore (video sensor), Iteris Vantage Edge2 (video sensor) and Matrix Wavetronix (microwave sensor). The sensors were tested in the tow eastbound lanes and two turning lanes on the intersection of Bishop Grandin Blvd and St.Mary's Road in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The research considered 24 weather, illumination, wind and traffic conditions. Testing and analysis was completed at the stop bar, and advance zone as well as for count performance. Sensitivity is a measure of the number of calls missed by the sensor. In terms of sensitivity, Iteris performed best overall, performing with greater sensitivity than Autoscope and Matrix in 17 of 24 conditions at the stop bar and outperforming in 11 of 12 conditions for advanced zone detection in this research. For count performance the Iteris had better accuracy when compared to ground truth established by Miovision Technologies, than Autoscope and Matrix.

Electric Vehicles (EVs) have gained acceptance as low or zero emission means of transportation. This thesis deals with the design of a battery cell testing platform and Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) battery modeling for EVs. A novel regenerative cell testing platform is developed for cell cycling applications. A 300 W - 5 V cell cycler consisting of a buck and a boost converter is designed. Furthermore, a novel battery modeling approach is proposed to accurately predict the battery performance by dynamically updating the model parameters based on the battery temperature and State of Charge (SOC). The comparison between the experimental and the model simulation results of an automotive cell under real-world drive-cycle illustrates 96.5% accuracy of the model. In addition, the model can be utilized to assess the long-term impact of battery impedance on performance of EVs under real-world drive-cycles.

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Utilizing a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) together with an Inertial Navigation System (INS) is today a common integration method to obtain a positioning solution for autonomous systems. Both GNSS and INS have benefits and weaknesses where the best parts from both systems can be combined with a Kalman filter. Because of this complementary nature, it is of interest to look at the robustness of the positioning solution when the Global Navigation Satellite System is temporarily not available. The aim of the thesis has been to investigate different vehicle models and to evaluate their short-time performance using a Dead Reckoning approach. The goal has been to develop a system for a Heavy Duty Vehicle (HDV) and to find out for which time interval a specific model can stay within a certain range when the GNSS is lost. A GNSS outage could for example happen when driving on a highway and passing signs, bridges and especially when driving inside tunnels. Also, for a solution to become commercially interesting, it must be cheap. Therefore, is it common to use so called Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (MEMS) sensors which are of low-cost but suffer from biases, scale factors and temperature dependencies which must be compensated for. The results from the tests show that some models are able to estimate the position with good precision during short time GNSS outages whereas other models do not deliver the required accuracy. The main conclusion is that care should be taken when choosing the vehicle model so that it fits its usage area and the complexity needed to describe its motion. There are also lots of parameters to look at when investigating the best solution, where modeling of the low-cost sensors is one of them.

In my master thesis, I decided to focus on process of design. Nowadays, there is huge difference between the process of software design and hardware design due to technological problem. Software design development has more flexibility than hardware design development. In addition, it can be adjustable for each user and can involve user in design process. In the future, some of technology such as 3D printer, modifiable material, and so on, will enable hardware designer to use software design process to design hardware. The process can make better relation between user and product. In this thesis, I used real user to simulate the future process. I did a lot of interview to the user and involve him to design process. I used current technology to interact with user as much as possible, for example, I used 3D scanner to scan his body data to make perfect size reference for his vehicle. In the end, I could design something unexpected in good way thanks to collaboration with the user. It was also unexpected for him, but he was satisfied with the result so much. I believe this process has a lot of potential to make better relation and story between user and product.

Historically, gasoline and diesel have been used as vehicle fuels for a long time. But the decline of oil supply and unstable oil price drive people to find alternative energy for vehicle fuel. Alternative energy solutions may shift energy consumption to less carbon, less pollutions and provide more energy diversity. These issues are investigated in the present literature review.   The first part of the thesis introduces different kinds of alternative energy for vehicles, such as biofuel, natural gas, hydrogen, liquefied petrol gas, electricity and compressed air. The presentations includes their utilization, production, environment effect, running performance, fuel property, market share, running and investigate cost and production barriers. The second part of the thesis work compares the properties of the alternative fuels and discusses the advantages and drawbacks of different types of fuel energies.   Compared with traditional fuels, alternative fuels have superiority in environment impact, sustainability and energy efficiency. Some of them have been used in reality and show a potential as future fuels. The author found that natural gas and liquefied petrol gas have low running costs, better environment performance and acceptable running range, and thus are able to substitute conventional fuels in the short term. Biofuel has better sustainability than gasoline. It will probably become more sustainable and cost effective in the mid-term period. Electricity can also become a future fuel in mid-term period since it has excellent emission performance and low running costs. Hydrogen is expected to substitute conversional fuels in the long term due to high investment costs and current unsustainable production pathway of the latter. The compressed air turned out not suitable for substituting conventional fuels because of poor efficiency and running range performance.

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