Look-ahead driver feedback and powertrain management
- Eaton Corporation, Menomonee Falls, WI (United States)
Commercial medium and heavy vehicles, though only a small portion of total vehicle population, play a significant role in energy consumption. In 2012, these vehicles accounted for about 5775.5 trillion btu of energy consumption and 408.8 million tons of CO2 emissions annually, which is a quarter of the total energy burden of highway transportation in the United States [1]. This number is expected to surpass passenger car fuel use within the next few decades. In the meantime, most commercial vehicle fleets are running at a very low profit margin. It is a well known fact that fuel economy can vary significantly between drivers, even when they operate the same vehicle on the same route. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Natural Resource Canada (NRCan), there is up to 35% fuel economy difference between drivers within the same commercial fleet [2] [3], [4]. Similar results were obtained from a Field Operation Test conducted by Eaton Corporation [5]. During this test as much as 30% fuel economy difference was observed among pick-up-and-delivery drivers and 11% difference was observed among line-haul drivers. The driver variability can be attributed to the fact that different drivers react differently to driving conditions such as road grade, traffic, speed limits, etc. For instance, analysis of over 600k miles of naturalistic heavy duty truck driving data [5] indicates that an experienced driver anticipates a downhill and eases up on the throttle to save fuel while an inexperienced driver lacks this judgment.
- Research Organization:
- Eaton Corporation, Menomonee Falls, WI (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- Contributing Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- EE0005456
- OSTI ID:
- 1179184
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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