The main focus of this project is to investigate the energy consumption of the manufacturing lines in the car industry and look for the potential methods regarding energy saving. Special emphasis is put on the lighting technologies that can be used in the manufacturing processes. Two lighting technologies are tested in order to see which one has better performance and lower energy consumption. Fluorescent tube and LED tube are compared concerning illuminance, UV irradiance and power consumption. Economic evaluation is also conducted to exam the feasibilities replacing fluorescent tubes with LED tubes. Results of the study show that the LED tubes have much lower energy consumption than fluorescent tubes, produce more direct and „colder“ light, and have much lower UV irradiance. However, the payback period of LED is relatively long at current price situation. Since it is expected that the price of LED tubes will decrease in future, it is reasonable to predict that the LED technology will change the fluorescent one in many applications. The energy consumption has been estimated for two manufacturing lines which use different technologies to produce car underbodies. In order to identify the differences from the energy consumption point of view, some measurements are conducted, such as the consumption of electricity, compressed air, air for ventilation and cooling water. The measured results show a disproportion in the power consumption when the lines are in stand-by mode. This affects the energy consumption per produced unit significantly. The line that has a higher capacity and a lower power consumption in the stand-by mode has a lower energy consumption per produced unit when it is operating with lower production loading. So, in order to improve the energy efficiency, it is necessary that it works at as high volume as possible and to have the stand-by power consumption as low as possible.

Rapporten beskriver förslag på framtidens ”Rear Seat Entertainment” som baseras på användning av pekskärm, istället för de DVD-baserade TV-skärmar som finns i t ex Volvo S80 i dagsläget. Projektet utfördes som ett examensarbete inom integrerad produktutveckling vid Högskolan i Skövde. Syftet med arbetet var att hitta lösningar som möjliggör användning av ”touchteknik” som kräver armavstånd till displayen. Arbetet delades upp i tre delar där val av pekskärmsenhet (inbyggd eller mobil), positionering av pekskärmen i bilen enligt ergonomiska rekommendationer, samt anpassning för olika stora personer inkluderade barn och utformning av infästningselement har utvecklats.  Arbete inleddes med litteraturstudier om interaktion av pekbaserade interface, målgruppsundersökningar, sammanställning av marknadsundersökningar, trendanalyser samt ergonomiska förutsättningar och miljöutvärderingar.  För idégenereringen användes kreativa och systematiserade metoder. Urval av idéer skedde i samråd med Volvo och med hjälp av en konceptvalsmatris. Det  slutliga  konceptet  baseras  på  användningen  av  mobila  pekskärmsenheter.  Dessa  motsvarar  bäst  de  i dagsläget ställda kriterierna på användning, ekonomi, miljö och flexibilitet. Dessutom erhålls en enklare mjuk- och hårdvaruuppdatering.   Positionering  av  pekskärmar  i  bilens  baksäte  gjordes  med  hjälp  av  ergonomiska  rekommendationer  samt databaserade beräkningar och simuleringar.    Utformning av infästningselementen anpassades till kravspecifikationen och resulterade i ett fäste som håller fast enheten med hjälp av  permanentmagneter  som byggs in i  ett infästningselement  på stolens baksida och ett i fodralet för surfplattan. Arbetet har lett till skärmar som enkelt kan fästas med magnetkrafter.

The purpose of this project is to continue the work on a vehicle model developed in ADAMS/Car and applied with the concept of ACM (Autonomous Corner Module). The project is divided up in two parts. The objective of the first part is to setup a co-simulation environment between ADAMS/Car and MATLAB/Simulink, and evaluate the vehicle model. In the second part a yaw controller is developed using only the rear wheel steering possibilities. The controller will be evaluated when it is applied on the vehicle model. The approach is to develop two models, one simpler in MATLAB/Simulink and one more complex in ADAMS/Car, and verify that they show similar behavior. The models will then be linearized and the control design will be based on the most appropriate linear model. Most of the work has been developing and evaluating the two vehicle models in ADAMS/Car and MATLAB/Simulink. The result was a working co-simulation environment where an evaluation of two different controllers was made. Due to linearization of the ADAMS model was nsuccessful, the controllers were based on the simpler linear Simulink model. Both controllers show similar results. Tests on the ADAMS model showed that it is hard to control both the yaw rate and body slip only by rear wheel steering.

Hybrid electric vehicles have two power sources - an internal combustion engine and an electric motor. These vehicles are of great interest because they contribute to a decreasing fuel consumption and air pollution and still maintain the performance of a conventional car. Different topologies are described in this thesis and especially the series and parallel hybrid electric vehicle and Toyota Prius have been studied. This thesis also depicts modelling of a reference car and a series hybrid electric vehicle in Modelica. When appropriate, models from the Modelica standard library have been used. Models for a manual gearbox, final drive, wheel, chassis, air drag and a driver have been developed for the reference car. For the hybrid electric vehicle a continuously variable transmission, battery, an electric motor, fuel cut-off function for the internal combustion engine and a converter that distributes the current between generator, electric motor and internal combustion engine have been designed. These models have been put together with models from the Modelica standard library to a reference car and a series hybrid electric vehicle which follows the NEDC driving cycle. A sketch for the parallel hybrid electric vehicle and Toyota Prius have also been made in Modelica. Developed models have been introduced into the Modelica library VehProLib, which is a vehicle propulsion library under development by Vehicular Systems, Linköpings universitet.

This master thesis deals with experimental data that were collected through a crash avoidance experiment (which was lead by Professor Lennart Strandberg) in February and March 1990. Fifty-two ordinary drivers were instructed to perform two different kinds of manoeuvres on ice to determine the effectiveness of antilock brakes and of four tyre configurations. Results were reported at the 1991 ESV Conference. The first aim of this master thesis is to check and revise the measured data (used by Prof. Strandberg in courses at Linköping University). Checking out many hours of video recordings from onboard cameras reveals various protocol inconsistencies and errors, which in some cases it is not possible to correct. This work might increase the reliability of any further analysis of these data. The second aim is to elaborate on the revised data and to test the hypothesis that quick steering is a key factor to not lose control of the car during a crash avoidance manoeuvre. Different variables are introduced and used to estimate the steering wheel velocity and lateral friction use. The results show linear (positive) correlations between lateral friction use and steering wheel velocity. The greatest steering wheel velocities appear in the tests with loss-of-control and reach values up to 1180 degrees per second. However, the 1990 experimental layout was not intended for this type of research questions and it seems difficult to determine the causal relationship between quick steering and control of the car. Some cases of excessive steering input might have occurred. The results indicate that quick steering by itself is not enough to guarantee the total control of the car. An early reaction to the skid might be necessary too. Evidently, further research is needed.

This thesis project was carried out at Volvo Car Corporation. It is based on an EU project called Locust in which a bio-inspired visual sensor system (the Locust sensor system) for automotive collision avoidance was developed. The Locust sensor system is designed to emulate the collision avoidance functionality of the Locust grasshopper, which is well-known for its extraordinary vision based collision avoidance ability, in particular with regard to its fast reaction times to perceived threats. Volvo Car Corporation is interested in the possibility of using the bio-inspired technology developed in the Locust project to improve its already existing collision avoidance systems. Pedestrian collision avoidance is of high interest, for which the properties of the Locust grasshopper are desirable. The purpose of this thesis project is to develop two demonstrator vehicles to test the performance of the Locust sensor system, carry out the testing, and evaluate its usability for Volvo Car Corporation. The first vehicle is a scale 1:5 model car that was originally developed in a thesis project at KTH, and the second a full scale Volvo XC90. It was found in the testing that the Locust sensor system is promising for pedestrian collision avoidance applications. The results for detecting other vehicles were also acceptable, but Volvo Car Corporation already has other collision avoidance systems with better performance in this regard. In general the test results were very good for speeds up to about 40 km/h. This indicates that the Locust sensor system would be most usable in a city driving environment, parking lot situations, and for driving in residential areas.

Problems related to sustainable development such as environmental issues, human rights, orlabor conditions, are nowadays deeply integrated in our society. It became primordial forcompanies to take into consideration these problems in their business development. For morethan a decade now, car companies started to publish official documents summarizing theircommitments in favor of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) actions. Through thesesustainability reports, car producers disclose information concerning their sustainable policyand bring details to stakeholders on performed sustainable actions. Because publication of sustainability reports is a relatively new phenomenon, a lot of studies still have to be made in this sector. In this way, no main studies were made regarding howCSR actions performed and disclosed by car companies evolved in the past decade. Didcompanies keep focusing on the same type of sustainable actions or did some changes occuron the way they conduct their CSR policies? No trends were available to try to understandhow car companies CSR actions evolved. This thesis is an attempt to fulfill this gap and bringa first set of useful findings on this topic. Based on three different car producers which are BMW Group, Ford Motor Company andMitsubishi Motors Corporation, our study analyses these companies 2002, 2006 and 2010sustainability reports and looks at how CSR actions are disclosed. The purpose is firstly todescribe how companies’ CSR commitment disclosure is evolving between 2002 and 2010and secondly to find explanation to the key trends. In order to achieve this, we used six mainCSR categories (Economic, Environment, Human Rights, Labor Practices and Decent Work,Product Responsibility and Society) and classified disclosed information in relation with thesecategories to create trends. For each of these six categories, sub-categories were used in orderto be more precise in the analysis process of the documents. Results showed an important interest of car producers for the environment category whichrepresents, on average, more than 40% of disclosed information in sustainability reports.Society category trend shows an important increase between 2006 and 2010 which led it tobecome the second most represented category in reports. Other categories trends present amore stable evolution with time. As it is explained more in detail in our analysis part, thisattraction toward environmental issues for car producers can be explained by the badreputation given to car producers in terms of emissions, energy consumption and moreglobally environmental protection. Cultural background and business mindset are alsoinfluencing companies’ choices. Responsive behaviors resulting from stakeholder’s pressureas well as adaptation to a weak regulatory framework are additional elements to explain the key disclosure trends.

<p>The Chinese automobile industry has been experiencing some profound changes during the market transition and globalization. Regarding to the ownership structure and technological upgrading strategies of the domestic assemblers, there have emerged four major developmental models. Transitional theoretical perspectives have limitations in face of these differing models. In this study, a perspective of social construction is proposed to resolve this research question. This dissertation explores four representative cases including FAW, SAIC Group, Chery and Geely. The major argument is that the local political structure, developmental ideas and agencies as necessary components of local social construction have resulted in the divergent paths among these Chinese car makers.</p> / Dissertation

The quality of car accessories is more and more important in recent year and consumer awareness of product quality also has been significant. This study bases on the factor s of quality management and mass customization capability to car accessories industry and weather is there any different between them to do our study. This article not only explores industrial dynamics and related literature but also with questionnaire and statistical methods to analyses collected data. The results showed small group problem and Customer focus.

Recently, active suspension has been applied to many commercial automobiles. To develop the control algorithm for active suspension, a quarter-car test bed was built by using a direct-drive tubular linear brushless permanent-magnet motor (LBPMM) as a force-generating component. Two accelerometers and a linear variable differential transformer (LVDT) are used in this quarter-car test bed. Three pulse-width-modulation (PWM) amplifiers supply the currents in three phases. Simulated road disturbance is generated by a rotating cam. Modified lead-lag control, linear-quadratic (LQ) servo control with a Kalman filter, and the fuzzy control methodologies were implemented for active-suspension control. In the case of fuzzy control, asymmetric membership functions were introduced. This controller could attenuate road disturbance by up to 78%. Additionally, a sliding-mode controller (SMC) is developed with a different approach from the other three control methodologies. While SMC is developed for the position control, the other three controllers are developed for the velocity control. SMC showed inferior performance due to the drawback of the implemented chattering-proof method. Both simulation and experimental results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of these four control methodologies.