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Motorcycle accident data have been collected in Glasgow, Hannover and Munich as part of a COST action and the data have been used to create a database comprising 218 cases. The purpose of the study was to improve the knowledge of head and neck injury mechanisms. The criteria for inclusion was that a helmet was worn at the time of the accident and that a head impact, although not necessarily a head injury, had occurred. Sixty-seven percent sustained a head injury and 28.2% a neck injury. Also notable were the 53% with a thorax injury and 73% with leg injuries. It is not surprising that when the injuries were subdivided into MAIS that as the MAIS increased so did the proportion with a head injury, from 38% for MAIS 1 to 85% for MAIS 3 and greater. Eighteen cases were replicated with drop tests of a helmeted headform and in 13 cases where the motorcyclist sustained a head injury the rotational acceleration was approximately 9,000 rad/s2 or greater.

A brief summary of the history of motor rail-car equipment on the railroad represented by the author is given in his paper. Three gasoline-driven rail-cars were put into operation in 1910. The engine used for each car was a six-cylinder, 10 x 12-in., slow-speed, four-cycle reversible-type having overhead valves, an open crankcase and a 200-hp. rating, but experience has proved that the four-cycle reversible-type engine equipped with an air-operated starting-apparatus makes rather a complicated unit that is the cause of many difficulties. Details are given concerning these first three cars, their performance and the changes made in their equipment. In 1922, a two-car train consisting of a motorcoach and a trailer was installed. The coach is 28 ft. long, has a 12-ft. baggage-space, carries 30 passengers and weighs 28,000 lb.; the trailer is 32 ft. long, weighs 17,000 lb. and seats 36 passengers.

Stringent legal requirements and increased demands of automobile manufacturers are the main driving forces for the development of modern electronic Engine Management Systems (EMS). The European automobile industry has voluntarily promised legislators to cut the average carbon dioxide emissions by 25 % for newly registered cars and station wagons by 2008, compared to levels in 1995. Bosch has provided a technical basis to achieve it with Motronic MED7, an electronically controlled EMS for Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) engines. The high-pressure GDI system for spark ignition engines is based on a pressure reservoir, which charges a high-pressure pump up to 12 MPa. The gasoline is injected directly into the combustion chamber via fast and precise electro-magnetic valves. Motronic MED7 enables various operating modes of “direct injection”.

Due to the social and legal requirements on the engine and the entire vehicle the functional scope of modem Engine Management Systems (EMS) has dramatically grown. As driving forces of this ongoing process the reduction of fuel consumption and emissions have to be considered - in the past as well as in the future. But also increasing comfort and diagnosis demands lead to a further increasing complexity of today's and future EMS. In order to securely control this complexity a well structured functional architecture in combination with physically based functions forms the necessary basis. With the launch of the MOTRONIC ME7 Bosch introduced a torque based functional architecture to meet these requirements. This includes not only the mentioned optimization of engine performance and compliance with legal standards on emission, fuel consumption and diagnosis.

This paper introduces a computer code for model verification of linear dynamic systems. Presentation is made within the broader context of system identification, and the many alternatives available for implementing a code. Practical considerations of the system identification process are discussed first. Alternative methods are reviewed and a classification system for existing as well as nonexisting methods is proposed. Finally, a rationale for the selection of a particular modeling approach, type of measurement data, and estimation algorithm is discussed. Although MOVER II was not specifically designed for large space structures, its capabilities fulfill many of the needs now recognized as important in the verification of reduced-order models. Prior application involving extensive use of substructuring and coordinate reduction is discussed.

Vehicle audio systems have evolved significantly since the first OEM offered systems were widely introduced in the 1930's. Within this context the relatively recent trend towards decentralized, or distributed, systems has allowed the feature content of sophisticated vehicles to expand by including extra remote devices in order to be packaged conveniently, such as rear seat controls, CD changers and trunk-mounted receivers. While these enhancements bring an unprecedented level of sophistication to the systems now found in high-end cars and trucks, such premium systems come at premium cost. Using standard CAN network development tools a low-cost alternative to the typical distributed audio system has been created and is presented. It features performance anticipated to be acceptable to today's consumer, offering many of the qualities of higher-end systems, while attempting to accommodate the serious cost pressure now being seen on low-end car and truck platforms.

Ever increasing process applications inspire us, as a supplier of aircraft, structural-assembly, and equipment, to design innovative and modular, manufacturing cells in compliance with modern specification. The result is the new highly flexible Multi Panel Assembly Cell (MPAC). This technical paper describes how benchmarks for flexible automated drilling and fastening are being achieved with the MPAC.

At present, most of the longitudinal car-following control algorithms based on model predictive control (MPC) do not consider the influence of the presence of the sloping road on the inter-vehicle distance, resulting in poor tracking capability under ramp conditions. In order to reduce the inter-vehicle distance error under ramp conditions and improve the tracking capability of longitudinal car-following control algorithm. The car-following control algorithm based on MPC considering uphill and downhill is proposed. This algorithm is based on the vehicle structure of fuel passenger cars, and adds a slope angle reconstruction module for implementing slope angle measurement and reducing the complexity of slope angle calculation based on the framework of conventional hierarchical control structure.

This paper proposed a model predictive control(MPC) based car-following control strategy for electric vehicles considering comfort, in order to improve the comfort of the car-following control system of electric vehicles. The MPC algorithm is improved in the following three aspects to improve the comfort: Firstly, a five-state longitudinal car-following model is adopted, so that the MPC algorithm can optimize the acceleration and acceleration change rate of the ego vehicle. Secondly, for the weight coefficients of the output vector and the input vector of the objective function, the fixed weight coefficients are changed into variable weight coefficients by the way of Nash equilibrium game, so that the control system can improve the weight of the parameters used to control the comfort under suitable driving conditions.

Autonomous vehicles in formula student competition is a relatively new competition, with most of the teams testing new concepts every year with their challenger for the season. A background search conducted reflects the various concept changes offered by the FS teams in Formula student Germany each year. Hence, it can be concluded that the teams are uncertain about many concepts in an autonomous vehicle. This paper explores one such aspect; the choice of controller governs the steering capabilities of the autonomous vehicle. An MPC controller is used to build a basic controller model for the autonomous vehicle in the formula student competition. A bicycle model representative of the Oxford Brookes Racing team's electric vehicle is modeled, and the MPC controller is used to check various vehicle dynamic parameters in Simulink.

This paper deals with the energy efficiency of cooperative cruise control technologies when considering vehicle strings in a realistic driving environment. In particular, we design a cooperative longitudinal controller using a state-of-the-art model predictive control (MPC) implementation. Rather than testing our controller on a limited set of short maneuvers, we thoroughly assess its performance on a number of regulatory drive cycles and on a set of driving missions of similar length that were constructed based on real driving data. This allows us to focus our assessment on the energetic aspects in addition to testing the controller’s robustness. The analyzed controller, based on linear MPC, uses vehicle sensor data and information transmitted by the vehicle driving the string to adjust the longitudinal trajectory of the host vehicle to maintain a reduced inter-vehicular distance while simultaneously optimizing energy efficiency.

To improve the maneuverability and energy consumption of an electrical vehicle, a two-level speed control method based on model predictive control (MPC) is proposed for accurate control of the vehicle during downhill coasting. The targeted acceleration is planned using the anti-interference speed filter and MPC algorithm in the upper-level controller and executed using the integrated algorithm with the inverse vehicle dynamics and proportional-integral-derivative control model (PID) in the lower-level controller, improving the algorithm’s anti-interference performance and road adaptability. Simulations and vehicle road tests showed that the proposed method could realize accurate real-time speed control of the vehicle during downhill coasting. It can also achieve a smaller derivation between the actual and targeted speeds, as well as more stable speeds when the road resistance changes abruptly, compared with the conventional PID method.

In this paper, a model predictive control (MPC) based trajectory tracking scheme utilizing steering wheel and braking or acceleration pedal is proposed for intelligent vehicles. The control objective is to track a desired trajectory which is obtained from the trajectory planner. The proposed control is based on a simplified third-order vehicle model, which consists of longitudinal vehicle dynamics along with a commonly used bicycle model. A nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) is adopted in order to follow a given path by controlling front steering, braking and traction, while fulfilling various physical and design constraints. In order to reduce the computational burden, the NMPC is converted to a linear time-varying (LTV) MPC based on successive online linearization of the nonlinear system model. Two different test conditions have been used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approaches through simulations using Matlab and CarSim.

This paper presents a parametric, experimental study of the performance of gas and liquid propane injection in a spark ignition, multi-point port injected (MPI) engine. An inline, six cylinder engine is used over a wide range of speeds and torques, and the air/fuel ratio, compression ratio and injection timing are all varied. The engine was mapped at the standard compression ratio of 9.65:1 with the original, gasoline MPI system, propane gas MPI, and single point, throttle body, propane gas injection. Gas and liquid propane MPI are then tested at a compression ratio of 11.7:1. Contour plots of thermodynamic efficiency and the specific emissions of HC, NOx, CO2 and CO over the torque/speed range are presented and compared. The results show significant differences in performance between gas and liquid propane MPI injection, as well as the MPI and throttle body gas injection.

The Mini Pressurised Logistics Module (MPLM) has the important job of servicing the Space Station via the National Space Transportation System (NSTS). During the previous and the on-going Alenia design activities, a continous effort is spent to optimize the MPLM performance characteristics with a possible mass reduction. The aim is to reach the best compromise between different needs: the payload requirements, the functional ground and flight operational constraints (three units qualified for 25 flight missions each), the total mass available for the payload. This paper has the objective to document the recent configuration changes and activities of the last couple of years. The two subsystems involved in this evolution are the Thermal Control (TCS) and the Environmental Control (ECLSS). Most of the MPLM equipment has already passed the Critical Design Review (CDR) step and the update situation for each piece of equipment is listed in this paper.

The Active MPLM system verification spans multiple programs and multiple organizations with multiple interfaces (Shuttle, ISS, MPLM, MELFI); the MPLM CIWG (Cooling Integration Working Group) was formed to provide a forum for working Active MPLM integration issues such as reviewing the interface verifications currently in plan, identifying the remaining risks to first time use of the end-to-end system, and identifying and working to resolve integrated issues with the system. The purpose of the Unique TCS Testing is to assess the system capability to calibrate the MPLM/Orbiter cooling loop to minimize the risk of inaccurate MPLM flow rate control to the Minus Eighty–degree Laboratory Freezer for the ISS (MELFI), to perform flow characterization testing for all racks location to minimize risk of R/F rack underflow, and to assess loop flow rate control under reduced flow condition to verify system stability.

The Mini Pressurised Logistic Module (MPLM) includes an Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS), whose general purpose is to guarantee a comfortable environment for the Crew. In particular, among the functions of the ECLSS, there is the provision of a correct ventilation in the habitable area of the Module and an air flow adequate to support fire detection in powered zones. These tasks are carried out by an air ventilation system mainly composed of a fan, eight cabin diffusers and a ducting system. In addition, the ECLSS furnishes, through a dedicated distribution system, the capability to suppress fire by release of the Carbon Dioxide contained in a portable fire extinguisher.

The MPLM (Mini Pressurized Logistic Module) is one of the Elements constituting the ISSA (International Space Station Alpha). With respect to the other Elements, the MPLM is not permanently attached to the ISSA, but it is transported by the Orbiter several times from/to the Earth, since its primary use is to resupply and return cargos. The MPLM capability to support the logistic flights is guaranteed during several mission phases (ground, Orbiter transportation, on-orbit docked to the Station). Since the installed cargo can be passive or active, the required MPLM functions are based on the actual flight. This paper presents an overview of the activities performed in Alenia Spazio to identify the criticality and peculiarity of the MPLM mission scenarios from the thermal point of view. The best technical solutions, foreseen up to now, have been implemented in the design to guarantee the reliability requested by such an important and unique Space Station Element.