This report evaluates the option of using an equal slip controller, an effective rolling radius and rolling resistance force observer in a 4WD wheel loader. The vehicle studied is an under development- vehicle designed by Volvo CE. A wheel loader is an over actuated, articulated vehicle that is mainly used with low velocities in construction operations. The efficiency subject has been studied earlier by many manufacturers in order to analyze the environmental and economical losses and profits. This has provided research opportunities of optimizing efficiency of different kinds. Since the tire is the only part of a vehicle that is in contact with the ground, the characteristic of the tire effects the dynamics. The analysis shows that the efficiency of a tire is directly connected to the slip ratio which in turn is a component of the overall efficiency ratio. Studies show that the slip ratio should be controlled in such a way that the highest value of efficiency rate is obtained. This optimal value is dependent on all four wheel’s slip conditions. Therefore a strategy should be formulated in order to apply changes to all wheels and not only one. Further analysis shows that the maximum efficiency in a 4WD wheel loader is obtained when the vehicle runs in such a way that the slip ratio is equal for all wheels. I order to maintain same amount of slip for all wheels a control strategy is required. In the control strategy the current amount of slip of each wheel is determined. Further, the average value of slip ratio is calculated. Finally the equal amount of slip is achieved using corresponding optimal torque inputs for each individual wheel. Thus a stable, robust controller is required. The controller used to achieve this goal is a sliding mode controller that is popular among control engineers for its stability, robustness against uncertainties, speed and easy implementation. For an accurate control, states of the rolling resistance and the effective rolling radius need to be determined. The pressure acting on the tire will cause deformation on the tire itself. This leads to a dynamic radius of the tire. This deformation is highly dependent on vertical stress and the structure of tire. Further more velocity, inflation pressure, vertical load etc. also have effect on rolling resistance. Rolling resistance has a great impact on the fuel consumption of the vehicle and the driving characteristics. These estimated variations of effective radius and rolling resistance build a feedback system to the controller which in turn derives the system to the desired slip ratio. As it turns out, the slip efficiency is increased using an equal slip controller. However, it is highly dependent on the ratio of thrust between front and rear wheels. / Denna rapport utvärderar möjligheten att använda en olinjär regulator i syfte att sätta lika stor ’slip’ på fordonets alla fyra hjul. Vidare ska en olinjär observerare modelleras för att uppskatta den så kallad hjulets effektiva radie samt rollmoståndskraften som verkar på däcket. Det studerade fordonet är en hjullastare konstruerad av Volvo CE och som i nuläget är under utveckling. En hjullastare är ett overmanövrerat fordon som huvudsakligen används i låga hastigheter i bygg- och transportverksamheter. Effektivitet är ett ämne som har studerats tidigare av många tillverkare för att analysera miljörelaterade och ekonomiska förluster och vinster. Detta har gett forskarna möjligheten att studera effektivitet av olika slag. Eftersom däcket är den enda delen av ett fordon som kommer i kontakt med marken, påverkar dess karaktär fordonets dynamika beteende i helhet. Analysen visar att däckets effektivitet är direkt kopplad till slipförhållande som i sin tur är en del av det totala effektivitetsförhållandet. Studier visar att slipförhållandet bör kontrolleras på ett sådant sätt att det högsta värdet av effektivitet uppnås. Detta optimala värde är beroende av slipförhållanden hos alla fyra hjul och därför bör en strategi formuleras för att nå optimalt slipeffektivitet på alla hjul. Ytterligare analys visar att maximal slipeffektivitet i en 4WD hjullastare erhålls när fordonet går så att slipförhållandet är lika för alla hjul. I kontrollstrategin bestäms det nuvarande slipförhållandet för varje hjul. Av dessa beräknas medelvärdet som skall presentera referensvärdet av slipförhållandet. Slutligen upp-nås detta värde med motsvarande optimala momentinmatningar för varje enskilt hjul. Styralgoritmen som används för att uppnå detta mål är en Sliding mode regulator som är populär bland kontrollingenjörer för dess stabilitet, robusthet mot osäkerhet, snabbhet och enkel implementering. För en noggrann kontroll måste tillstånden av rullmotståndskraften och effektiv rull-radien observeras. De verkande krafterna på hjulet orsakar deformation på däcket som ger upphov till däckets dynamiska radie. Denna deformation är starkt beroende av vertikal spänning och däckets struktur. Vidare har hastighet, däckets lufttryck, vertikal belastning etc. också effekt på rullmotståndskraften. Rullmotstånd har stor inverkan på fordonets bränsleförbrukning och drivegenskaper. Dessa variationer av effektivradie och rullmotstånd bygger ett återkopplat system till regulatorn som i sin tur leder systemet till önskat slipförhållande. Som det visar sig, ökar slipeffektiviteten med hjälp av "equal slip" styralgoritm. Detta är emellertid mycket beroende av förhållandet av momentinmatningar mellan fram och bakhjulet.

Tyre wear is a vital problem in vehicles, especially in articulated vehicles because of their heavier axle loads. Tyre wear can not only do harm to vehicle dynamics but also cause tyre particle emissions. Therefore, solutions that can minimise tyre wear are where this thesis work focuses. The suspension design is one of the main factors affecting tyre wear. This thesis considers different kinds of semi-active (such as ADD, SH-2 and GH-2) and active suspensions (\(H_\infty\) control) and compares them with a passive suspension with regards to tyre wear. Driving comfort and road holding are considered as well. The simulation starts by running a IPG/TruckMaker model on a route introducing a certain road roughness profile, and outputs lateral slip angles, which together with vehicle parameters and route data are input into a Simulink model. Then, based on the static vertical load on each axles of the articulated vehicle, three different quarter car models corresponding to the axles with various suspension systems are built in Simulink. Simulation results show that the active suspension (\(H_\infty\) control approach) works best in minimising tyre wear, reducing tyre wear by 1-10\% compared to the passive suspension when the vehicle is driving on road profile Class C (country road). Meanwhile, several control strategies of \(H_\infty\) control are applied in order to result in overall good vehicle performance considering comfort and road holding. Semi-active suspensions also work well in reducing tyre wear, but the amount of tyre wear reduction is lower than that of the \(H_\infty\) controllers. / Däckslitage är ett viktigt problem för fordon, särskilt för tunga ledade fordon på grund av deras högre axellaster. Däckets slitage påverkar inte bara fordonets dynamik utan orsakar också utsläpp av däckpartiklar. Olika lösningar behöver utvecklas som kan minimera däckslitage och det är fokus för detta examensarbete. Hjulupphängningens konstruktion är en viktig faktor som påverkar däckslitaget. Detta arbete studerar olika typer av semiaktiva (såsom ADD, SH-2 och GH-2) och aktiva fjädringssystem (\(H_\infty\) reglering) och jämför dem med ett passivt fjädringssystem när det gäller däckslitage, samtidigt som även körkomfort och väghållning beaktas. Simuleringarna inleds med att en IPG/TruckMaker fordonsmodell kör längs en sträcka med en viss typ av vägojämnhet. Simuleringarna resulterar i avdriftsvinklar för fordonet som tillsammans med fordonsparametrar och ruttinformation skapar indata till en Simulink-modell. Därefter, baserat på den statiska vertikala belastningen på varje axel i det ledade fordonet, skapas tre olika kvartsbilsmodeller i Simulink som motsvarar axlarna med deras olika hjulupphängningssystem.Simuleringsresultaten visar att den aktiva fjädringen (\(H_\infty\)) fungerar bäst när det gäller att minimera däckslitage, där slitaget minskar med 1-10\% jämfört med den passiva fjädringen när fordonet kör på vägprofil klass C (landsväg). Samtidigt tillämpas flera olika \(H_\infty\) reglerstrategier för att åstadkomma överlag goda fordonsprestanda även med avseende på komfort och väghållning. Semiaktiva fjädringssystem fungerar också bra för att minska däckslitaget, men minskningen av slitaget är lägre än den för den aktiva \(H_\infty\) fjädringen.

Tyre wear is a significant problem on today's road vehicles, particularly for heavy trucks. As the tyre wears, microplastics is released in the air causing long term health issues and environmental pollution. With the introduction of automated vehicles there is a big potential to improve tyre wear of heavy trucks. In this direction, this thesis investigates the fundamentals of motion planning for minimising the lateral tyre wear in cornering for automated articulated vehicles. The trade-off between journey time and tyre wear is analysed. For the simulations, firstly an articulated vehicle model is used from the literature and validated with IPG/TruckMaker. Secondly, a sensitivity analysis is conducted on the articulated vehicle on a couple of parameters. The front cornering stiffness, hitch point, trailer mass and trailer centre of gravity position where the parameters influence on tyre wear is analysed. The results showed that moving the hitch point forward decreases the total tyre wear, increasing mass of the trailer increases tyre wear while the front cornering stiffness and centre of gravity position of the trailer did low to no difference to the total tyre wear. Then, an optimal control problem was configured to investigate the motion planning of an articulated vehicle. Then, the motion planning system is configured to find an optimal feasible trajectory with respect to dynamic and path constraints for the articulated vehicle to minimise lateral wear at a predefined path for fixed journey times. Four case different configurations of the problem are investigated to study the influence of driving style, lateral manoeuvrability allowance, vehicle acceleration capabilities and of the number of steering axles on the tractor. The results showed that motion planning can be used for minimising lateral tyre wear. The case study with largest impact on tyre wear was driving style, where the tyre wear showed significant difference between slow driving and aggressive driving. The second case study showed that wider lateral allowance led to less tyre wear and increasing the acceleration capabilities also decreases lateral tyre wear. The additional steering axle on the truck decreased tyre wear at higher velocities but for lower velocities the difference was negligible. / Däckslitage är ett signifikant problem både ur ett miljöperspektiv och ur ett ekonomiskt perspektiv. Väldigt lite fokus läggs på utsläpp från däck när olika utsläppskällor diskuteras. När transportsamhället rör sig mot automation finns det stora möjligheter att utnyttja automatiserade fordon för att minska däckslitage. Det här examensarbetet undersöker möjligheterna att minimera däckslitage genom ruttplanering för automatiserade lastbilar med en artikulationspunkt. Ett optimeringsproblem formuleras och definieras med två målfunktioner för att undersöka hur det laterala däckslitaget i kurvor kan minimeras utan att förlänga restiden. Ruttplaneringens uppgift är att finna den mest optimala rutten med hänsyn till den fördefinierade vägen, fordonets dynamiska begränsningar och vägens begränsningar. Fyra delstudier genomförs, där körstil, vägbredd, maximal tillåten acceleration och påverkan av en ytterligare styrande axel undersökes. För att genomföra simuleringarna implementeras en bilmodell från litteraturen. Bilmodellen jämförs sedan med ett program för att validera dess noggrannhet och robusthet. Sedan görs en känslighetsanalys med hänsyn till däckslitage på några fordonsparametrar, nämligen artikuleringspunkten, framaxelns kurvstyvhet, placering av släpets tyngdpunkt och släpets vikt. Resultatet påvisade att ruttplanering är en bra metod för att minimera däckslitage, resultatet visade att körstil var en viktig faktor till däckslitage, där aggressiv körstil resulterade i mer slitage. Sedan visades det att vägbredd också hade en stor påverkan, där bredare vägar gav upphov till mindre slitage, och smalare vägar gav upphov till mer slitage. Vid högre tillåtna acclerationsnivåer blev däckslitaget lägre men högre vid lägre accelerationsgränser. När två styrbara axlar styrbara används så påvisades mindre däckslitage mot samma restid som när en axel är styrbar. Sist så visade känslighetsanalysen en stor skillnad på totalt däckslitage i relation till placering av artikuleringspunkten. Högre släpvikt gav också mer slitage medan placering av släpets tyngdpunkt och framaxelns kurvstyvhet gav upphov till låg ändring i totalt däckslitage.

This thesis deals with design of hydrostatic drive for multipurpose loader and tool carrier DAPPER. At the beginning is research of different basic concepts and modern solutions to the problem, aided by a detailed description of competitive machine in the same performance category. Extensive comparison with other producers is included in the annexes to this thesis. Furthermore, a theoretical driving characteristic and its appropriateness is examined further on the basis of two model situations. The calculations of the individual components of the hydraulic circuit precedes drive kinematics analysis of articulated machine frame, on it final conception of hydrostatic drive is chosen. Firstly hydromotors and hydogenerator are chosen on the grounds of calculations then hydraulic hoses, filters and flow divider. Next chapters are aimed to calculations of hydraulic losses and thermal calculation of hydraulic circuit. Final part deals with introduction the final characteristics of drive. The practical parts of the work are assembly drawings with main power components and hydraulic schematic of drive.

As is the case with many other manufacturers of vehicles, Volvo Construction Equipment has a constantly increasing amount of electric and electronic equipment in their articulated haulers. These are of great use in modern machines, bringing functions, and safety that were not possible before, but they also bring more cables to handle. In the case of the articulated haulers a quite thick cable harness of about 15 meters in length reaches from the driver’s cabin in the front to the components in the far back end of the vehicle. This is not only a lot of long cables to handle both during assembly and service, but the nature of signals traveling in cables is that the voltage gets weaker with distance. This phenomenon has to be accounted for by measuring devices dependent on the voltage. It has been suggested that a device referred to as an intelligent node, or ICCS-module, which communicates digitally via CAN could be installed in the back of the articulated haulers. This module would be independent of the mentioned drop in voltage. The ICCS-module will be receiving a small bundle of cables being routed from the driver’s cabin. From it cables would go out to a majority of the components in its vicinity. The components connected to the node would not need to have any other cables. This thesis is focused on the mechanical aspects of installing this ICCS-module. Having electric and electronic equipment on construction vehicles is a challenge when it comes to protecting the device from the harsh environment that is the hauler’s exterior. It will have to withstand being immersed in water for long periods of time, greatly varying temperatures, vibrations and shocks as well as being hit by projectiles. The placement as well as the design of the enclosure should be chosen with respect to both the devices length of life and how well it fulfils its intended role and achieves the expected results. To produce an enclosure and find a placement aiming to satisfy these conditions, a traditional product development process were executed. The articulated haulers as well as relevant literature were researched. Concepts were generated and evaluated by both the author and by employees at Volvo Construction Equipment until a final concept for the enclosure and placement were found. The enclosure were then designed in detail specifying the material, manufacturing techniques, controlled for thermodynamic circumstances, modelled in Catia V5 and controlled for vibrations. It was concluded that the enclosure should be able protect the ICCS-module after some more development and that the placement and cable routing results in a much shorter total cable length.

L'agriculture est un secteur d'activité qui est confronté aujourd'hui à des objectifs d'accroissement de productivité pour subvenir aux besoins alimentaires de la population mondiale en pleine explosion démographique. Cependant, cette activité sollicite fortement les biens environnementaux tels que l'eau et le sol, et des solutions sont aujourd'hui recherchées pour limiter l'incidence des pratiques agricoles sur l'environnement. Les systèmes de guidage des véhicules agricoles font partie de ces nouvelles technologies qui contribuent à cet objectif, en offrant la possibilité d'assurer la précision du suivi des trajectoires dans les parcelles, et de favoriser ainsi l'efficacité et la qualité du travail agronomique réalisé. Des fonctionnalités essentielles font néanmoins aujourd'hui défaut à ces systèmes. Citons la capacité à compenser la marche en crabe du véhicule sur les terrains glissants en pente, la capacité à contrôler les trajectoires des outils agricoles traînés, et la capacité à effectuer certaines manoeuvres en zone de fourrière. Ce travail de thèse aborde l'ensemble de ces problématiques au travers l'étude de la commande en milieu naturel de robot mobile poly-articulé à roues (RMPA), composé d'un véhicule " tracteur " à deux trains directeurs associé à n remorques passives à attache déportée. Une modélisation cinématique étendue est d'abord adoptée pour tenir compte des effets induits par les faibles conditions d'adhérence sur le comportement global du RMPA. Les variables de glissement introduites sur chacun des trains directeurs et roulants sont estimées à l'aide d'un observateur bâti à la manière d'une loi de commande. La trajectoire de référence à suivre gamma est quant à elle préalablement apprise ou construite à l'aide de primitives élémentaires et d'arcs de clothoïdes pour générer les manoeuvres de demi-tour. En premier lieu, les deux trains directeurs du RMPA sont exploités pour contrôler avec précision non seulement l'écart latéral mais également l'écart angulaire du véhicule " tracteur " par rapport à gamma : la commande du train directeur avant est basée sur la transformation du modèle en un système chaîné, conduisant à un découplage exact des performances latérales et longitudinales, puis sur des techniques de linéarisation exacte pour assurer la régulation latérale. La commande du train directeur arrière se base sur la dynamique de l'écart angulaire pour compenser les glissements et asservir cet écart sur le point de fonctionnement choisi. En second lieu, ces commandes sont étendues pour asservir latéralement la ieme remorque du RMPA le long de gamma : une approche en cascade est utilisée pour traduire une commande virtuelle de la ieme remorque en terme de commande du train directeur avant du véhicule " tracteur ". La commande longitudinale du RMPA est quant à elle basée sur une stratégie de commande prédictive à modèle interne, afin de suivre avec précision le profil de vitesse associé à gamma. De nombreuses expérimentations en conditions réelles, effectuées sur un RMPA composé d'un véhicule " tracteur " à deux trains directeurs et d'une remorque passive à attache déportée, viennent valider les différentes approches présentées dans ce mémoire et permettent d'apprécier les performances des lois de commande proposées. / Agriculture has today the challenge to increase its productivity in order to supply enough food for the growing needs of the world population. However, this activity strongly damages environmental ressources as water and soil, and new solutions are today required to reduce the impact of agricultural practices on environment. Automatic guidance systems for farm vehicles are some new technologies that contribute to this objective, allowing accurate path following in the fields and therefore improving efficiency and quality of the agricultural work carried out. Essential functionalities are however absent in these systems, as the capacities to compensate for the crabway motion of the vehicle on sliding sloping fields, to control the trajectories of the towed implement,and to perform U-turn maneuvers in headland. This thesis studies these problems through the control in presence of sliding of a poly-articulated wheeled mobile robot called RMPA, composed of a four-wheel-steering vehicle and n passive trailers hooked up at some distance from the rear axle of the previous one. An extended kinematic model of the RMPA is first used in order to take into account for the sliding effects on the overall behaviour of the robot. The sliding parameters, introduced on each rolling and steering axle of the RMPA, are estimated using a state observer built as a control law. The reference path [gamma] to be followed is either previously learned or specially planned using elementary primitives connected together with pieces of clothoid to produce the U-turn maneuvers. In a first step, both front and rear steering actuations of the robot are used to accurately control both lateral and angular deviations of the RMPA's four-wheel-steering vehicle with respect to [gamma] : the control of the front steering wheels is based on the transformation of the extended kinematic model into a chained system, allowing to dissociate the lateral and longitudinal commands, and on exact linearization techniques in order to servo lateral deviation. The control of the rear steering wheels is built from the angular deviation dynamic and ensures the convergence of the vehicle deviation to the desired set point. In a second step, these control laws are extended to control the lateral deviation of the ith trailer of the RMPA with respect to [gamma] : a backstepping approach is proposed to calculate the control law for the RMPA's front steering wheels from the study of a virtual control law for the ith trailer. Finally, the longitudinal control law of the RMPA is based on model predictive control, in order to accurately follow the velocity references linked to [gamma]. Numerous experiments relying on an actual RMPA, composed of a passive trailer hooked up at some distance from the rear axle of a four-wheel-steering vehicle, permit to validate the various approaches presented in this thesis and to appreciate the capabilities of the proposed control laws.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-05T13:58:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 10 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / O objetivo desta dissertação é propor, testar e avaliar o uso de técnicas de Aprendizado de Máquina (ML) na configuração automática do controle do caminhar de robôs com pernas. Para que este objetivo fosse atingido, um extensa pesquisa de técnicas do estado da arte foi realizada e descrita neste trabalho. Esta pesquisa permitiu a elaboração do modelo proposto, chamado de LegGen, que foi implementado em um protótipo. O protótipo modelo em questão permite a utilização de vários tipos de robôs, compostos de quatro, seis ou mais patas, e além disto permite a evolução da morfologia dos robôs. Utilizando o protótipo, é possível a realização de experimentos com robôs autônomos dotados de pernas, em um ambiente virtual tridimensional realístico, através de simulações baseadas em física. Foi utilizada a biblioteca ODE (Open Dynamics Engine) para a simulação de corpos rígidos e articulações, permitindo assim simular forças agindo nas articulações (atuadores), gravidade e colisões, entre outras propriedades físicas dos / The main goal of this dissertation is to propose, to test and to evaluate the use of Machine Learning (ML) techniques in the automatic con_guration of the gait control in legged robots. In order to achieve this goal, an extensive research about state-of-the-art techniques was accomplished and they are described in this work. This research allowed the development of the proposed model, called LegGen, which was implemented in a prototype. The proposed model allows the use of several different robot models with four, six or more paws. Besides that, the prototype allows also to study the robot's morphology evolution. The implemented prototype allows to accomplish experiments with autonomous legged robots, in a realistic three-dimensional virtual environment, through physics based simulations. The ODE (Open Dynamics Engine) software library was used in the physical simulation of rigid bodies and articulations, allowing to simulate forces acting in the articulations (actuators), gravity and collisions, among other

Denna rapport i form av examensarbete för utbildningsprogrammet Managing Technology and Business Projects, är en del i Volvos framtida produktions-/ produktstrategier. Uppsatsens syfte är att ur ett produktionsperspektiv understödja Volvo Construction Equipment i Braås i strävan mot en ökad modulindelning av ramstyrda dumprar, som en del i utvecklingsarbetet för en effektivare produktion. Resultat har uppnåtts genom analys av intern och extern benchmarking jämfört med den teori som finns inom ämnesområdet modulindelning. Huvudresultatet visar att teorin och verkligheten skiljer sig genom att modulindelning ska anpassas individuellt utifrån varje företag och inte fungerar som en generellt applicerbar process. Slutsatsen visar att Volvo CE i Braås måste utveckla en egen handlingsplan och kravspecifikation utifrån egna definitioner som är skräddarsydda specifikt för företaget. I rapporten presenteras förslag till ovanstående handlingsplan för modulindelning på Volvo CE i Braås. / This diplomawork is the ending part of the education program Managing technology and Business Projects at Växjö University and was given as an assignment from Volvo Construction Equipment in Braås. The work is a part of Volvos future production- and product strategies and aims to support Volvo in their work towards a module classification of the articulated hauler line built in Braås. The result has been reached trough analysis of internal and external benchmarking compared to the theory regarding the subject. The main result shows that theory diverges from reality in the way that modularization must be adjusted individually for each company and that it doesn’t work as a general applicable process. The conclusion shows that Volvo CE in Braås must develop a unique plan of action from the in-house definitions that is tailored specifically for the company.

One of the common research goals in disciplines such as computer graphics and robotics is to understand the subtleties of human motion and develop tools for recreating natural and meaningful motion. Physical simulation of virtual human characters is a promising approach since it provides a testbed for developing and testing control strategies required to execute various human behaviors. Designing generic control algorithms for simulating a wide range of human activities, which can robustly adapt to varying physical environments, has remained a primary challenge. This dissertation introduces methods for generic and robust control of virtual characters in an interactive physical environment. Our approach is to use the information of the physical contacts between the character and her environment in the control design. We leverage high-level knowledge of the kinematics goals and the interaction with the surroundings to develop active control strategies that robustly adapt to variations in the physical scene. For synthesizing intentional motion requiring long-term planning, we exploit properties of the physical model for creating efficient and robust controllers in an interactive framework. The control design leverages the reference motion capture data and the contact information with the environment for interactive long-term planning. Finally, we propose a compact soft contact model for handling contacts for rigid body virtual characters. This model aims at improving the robustness of existing control methods without adding any complexity to the control design and opens up possibilities for new control algorithms to synthesize agile human motion.

<p>Denna rapport i form av examensarbete för utbildningsprogrammet Managing Technology and Business Projects, är en del i Volvos framtida produktions-/ produktstrategier.</p><p>Uppsatsens syfte är att ur ett produktionsperspektiv understödja Volvo Construction Equipment i Braås i strävan mot en ökad modulindelning av ramstyrda dumprar, som en del i utvecklingsarbetet för en effektivare produktion. Resultat har uppnåtts genom analys av intern och extern benchmarking jämfört med den teori som finns inom ämnesområdet modulindelning. Huvudresultatet visar att teorin och verkligheten skiljer sig genom att modulindelning ska anpassas individuellt utifrån varje företag och inte fungerar som en generellt applicerbar process. Slutsatsen visar att Volvo CE i Braås måste utveckla en egen handlingsplan och kravspecifikation utifrån egna definitioner som är skräddarsydda specifikt för företaget.</p><p>I rapporten presenteras förslag till ovanstående handlingsplan för modulindelning på Volvo CE i Braås.</p> / <p>This diplomawork is the ending part of the education program Managing technology and Business Projects at Växjö University and was given as an assignment from Volvo Construction Equipment in Braås.</p><p>The work is a part of Volvos future production- and product strategies and aims to support Volvo in their work towards a module classification of the articulated hauler line built in Braås.</p><p>The result has been reached trough analysis of internal and external benchmarking compared to the theory regarding the subject. The main result shows that theory diverges from reality in the way that modularization must be adjusted individually for each company and that it doesn’t work as a general applicable process. The conclusion shows that Volvo CE in Braås must develop a unique plan of action from the in-house definitions that is tailored specifically for the company.</p>