Analysis of Geo-Location Data to Determine Combat Vehicle Idling Times

As the United States Army strives for electrification and hybridization of tactical and combat vehicles in alignment with its Climate Strategy, it is necessary to capture all aspects of the drive cycle. One key area for consideration is the amount of time that the vehicles spend idling. Indeed, military vehicles can idle for a considerable amount of time, especially given that soldiers must keep their vehicles running to power critical electronic subsystems. Current, standardized drive cycles do not fully capture the degree that military vehicles idle. This study begins to address this gap by analyzing geo-location data collected from the National Training Center (NTC) for several different tactical vehicles including the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV), the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, and the Abrams Main Battle Tank. This paper details the extraction, cleaning, and analysis of the geo-location data. The analysis provides insight to how often each vehicle type was stationary over the course of a multi-week training exercise. When coupled with common tactics required in this operating environment, the total amount of time that each vehicle was idling may be approximated. The analysis found that over a given training rotation at NTC, the vehicles spent a considerable amount of time idling, leading to a significant amount of fuel consumption. The paper concludes by evaluating opportunities to mitigate vehicle idle fuel consumption including anti-idle kits and auxiliary power units.