ADVANTAGES OF DEVELOPING AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE FOR ADVANCED REAL LIFE VEHICLE SIMULATIONS.

The traditional design process of any vehicle (small class, compact class, van, SUV or maybe hybrid, electric or yet undefined) is very long, rigid and not cost effective. At the end of this process the vehicle manufacturer doesn't end up with too many prototypes for testing, and not many things can be changed on those prototypes. During the design process, the simulations are mainly focused on the dynamic and the energetic performances, the passive and the active safety features and on complying with the environmental standards. The simulations are done "offline" without feedback from the real system or "online" (real-time) with a degree of feedback from components of the real system (HiL) and limited feedback of human operator (H2iL). Whatever the case, the simulations cannot ensure the human feedback on the vehicle comfort or driving pleasure. This project proposes a new approach: developing an electric test platform (simulator) with fully customizable parameters, on which any type of vehicle characteristics can be loaded. This will allow testing/simulating the vehicle in real life traffic conditions while being driven by a regular driver. During the tests, the platform will allow the study of dynamic and energetic performances and the study of comfort while driving in real life traffic conditions (launch, braking, accelerating, gear change etc.). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]