Optimal scheduling of the flexray static segment based on two-dimensional bin-packing algorithm

FlexRay is a reliable and hard real-time in-vehicle communication protocol that is strongly promoted by car manufacturers as the de facto standard in the automotive domain. The protocol offers both a time-triggered and an eventtriggered architecture. This paper focuses on the optimal scheduling of the time-triggered component of FlexRay known as the static (ST) segment using a two-dimensional bin-packing technique. To maximize the bandwidth utilization in the ST segment, a fast heuristic as well as an efficient integer linear programming approach are proposed. Our methods directly schedule signals into slots including frame packing, according to signal-based data scheduling and the slot/ cycle multiplexing mechanisms presented by the latest version of the FlexRay protocol. The benefits of our proposed methods are demonstrated by extensive experiments on synthetic and an automotive X-by-wire system case study. An additional test case is examined to emphasize the superior performance of the proposed approach relative to that of existing optimal scheduling approaches.     

Major sources of hydrocarbon emissions in a premixed charge compression ignition engine

Although premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI) combustion engines are praised for potentially high efficiency and clean exhaust, experimental engines built to date emit more hydrocarbons (HCs) and carbon monoxide (CO) than the conventional machines. These compounds are not only strictly controlled components of the exhaust gas of road vehicles but are also an energy loss indicator. The prime objective of this study was to investigate the major sources of the HCs formed in the combustion chamber of an experimental PCCI engine in order to suggest some effective technologies for HC reduction. In this study, to explore the dominant sources of HC emissions in both operation modes, a single cylinder engine was prepared such that it could operate using either conventional diesel combustion or PCCI combustion. Specifically, the contributions of the top-ring crevice volume in the combustion chamber and the bulk quenching of the lean mixture were investigated. To understand the influence of the shape and magnitude of the crevice on HC emissions, the engine was operated with 12 specially prepared pistons with different top-ring crevices installed one after another. The engine emitted proportionally more HCs as the depth of the crevice increased as long as the width remained narrower than the prevailing quench distance. The top-ring-crevice-originated exhaust HCs comprised approximately 31% of the total HC emissions in the baseline condition. In a series of tests to estimate the effects of bulk quench on exhaust HC emissions, intake air was heated from 300K to 400K in steps of 25K. With the intake air heated, HC and CO emissions decreased with a gradually diminishing rate to zero at 375K. In conclusion, the most dominant sources of HC emissions in PCCI engines were the crevice volumes in the combustion chamber and the bulk quenching of the lean mixtures. The key methods for reducing HC emissions in PCCI engines are minimizing crevice volume in the combustion chamber and maximizing intake air temperature allowed based on the permissible NOx level.     

On-road visual vehicle tracking using Markov chain Monte Carlo particle filtering with metropolis sampling

In this study, a method for vehicle tracking through video analysis based on Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) particle filtering with metropolis sampling is proposed. The method handles multiple targets with low computational requirements and is, therefore, ideally suited for advanced-driver assistance systems that involve real-time operation. The method exploits the removed perspective domain given by inverse perspective mapping (IPM) to define a fast and efficient likelihood model. Additionally, the method encompasses an interaction model using Markov Random Fields (MRF) that allows treatment of dependencies between the motions of targets. The proposed method is tested in highway sequences and compared to state-of-the-art methods for vehicle tracking, i.e., independent target tracking with Kalman filtering (KF) and joint tracking with particle filtering. The results showed fewer tracking failures using the proposed method.     

Perspectives on railway track geometry condition monitoring from in-service railway vehicles

This paper presents a view of the current state of monitoring track geometry condition from in-service vehicles. It considers technology used to provide condition monitoring; some issues of processing and the determination of location; how things have evolved over the past decade; and what is being, or could/should be done in future research. Monitoring railway track geometry from an in-service vehicle is an attractive proposition that has become a reality in the past decade. However, this is only the beginning. Seeing the same track over and over again provides an opportunity for observing track geometry degradation that can potentially be used to inform maintenance decisions. Furthermore, it is possible to extend the use of track condition information to identify if maintenance is effective, and to monitor the degradation of individual faults such as dipped joints. There are full unattended track geometry measurement systems running on in-service vehicles in the UK and elsewhere around the world, feeding their geometry measurements into large databases. These data can be retrieved, but little is currently done with the data other than the generation of reports of track geometry that exceeds predefined thresholds. There are examples of simpler systems that measure some track geometry parameters more or less directly and accurately, but forego parameters such as gauge. Additionally, there are experimental systems that use mathematics and models to infer track geometry using data from sensors placed on an in-service vehicle. Finally, there are systems that do not claim to measure track geometry, but monitor some other quantity such as ride quality or bogie acceleration to infer poor track geometry without explicitly measuring it.     

Simulation of city bus performance based on actual urban driving cycle in China

This paper establishes the simulation model of a city bus on the basis of the EQ6110 bus prototype and its experimental data. According to the actual urban driving cycle, the fuel economy and the traction performance of the EQ6110 city bus have been simulated, and factors such as the driving cycle, the loss of power to engine accessories, the gear-shifting strategy, the fuel shut-off strategy of the engine, etc., which influence on the bus’s fuel economy, are also quantitatively analyzed. Some conclusions are drawn as follows: (1) driving cycles have a great influence on the fuel economy of a city bus; (2) under the typical urban driving cycle of the public bus in China, the engine fuel shut-off strategy can save about 1 to 1.5 percent of the fuel consumption; and (3) the optimized gear-shifting rules can save 6.7 percent of the fuel consumption. Experimental results verify that the fuel economy for the EQ6110 public bus is improved by 7.2 pecent over the actual Wuhan urban driving cycle of the current public bus in China.     

Transient characteristics of emissions during engine start/stop operation employing a conventional gasoline engine for HEV application

In this paper, we investigate the transient characteristics of combustion and emissions during engine start/stop operations in hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) applications. Hydrocarbon (HC) emissions during the initial 2^nd∼9^th cycles are found to be significantly greater when the engine is quickly started under the original engine calibration mode. Lower intake manifold absolute pressure (MAP) was also found to cause larger residual gas dilution and poor combustion, resulting in a higher HC concentration when the cranking speed was increased. The post-catalyst HC concentration was found in the way of initially decrease and then to increase again as the cranking speed was increased. A lowest concentration value was achieved at a cranking speed of 1000 r/min. Engine shut-down by fuel cut-off was shown to produce lower emissions than shut-down by ignition cut-off as one can avoid misfire of the last fuel injection cycle. The fuel deposited during the stop process seems to impact engine restart enrichment mostly during the initial 0.7 s for this engine, whose performance is dominated by the MAP transition characteristic and the time coefficient for fuel vaporization in this time period     

Flexible long range planning using low cost information

Contemporary transport planning requires a flexible modelling approach which can be used to monitor the implementation of a long term plan checking regularly its short term performance with easily available data; the original model is periodically updated using low cost information and this allows the evaluation of the changes to the plan which may be required. Such an approach requires models suited to regular updating and to the use of data from different sources. Models to update trip matrices from traffic counts have been available for some time; however, the estimation and/or updating of other model stages with low cost data has escaped analytical treatment. The paper discusses this idea and formulates the updating problem for an example involving a joint destination/mode choice model under various assumptions about the nature of the available data. Analytical solutions are proposed as well as some general conclusions.requests for offprints     

Seasonality of picophytoplankton chlorophyll a and biomass in the central Cantabrian Sea, southern Bay of Biscay

Seasonal changes in the abundance and biomass of cyanobacteria (Synechococcus and Prochlorococcus) and picoeukaryotes were studied by flow cytometry in the upper layers of the central Cantabrian Sea continental shelf, from April 2002 to April 2006. The study area displayed the typical hydrographic conditions of temperate coastal zones. A marked seasonality of the relative contribution of prokaryotes and eukaryotes was found. While cyanobacteria were generally more abundant for most of the year (up to 2.4 10⁵ cells mL^− 1), picoeukaryotes dominated the community (up to 10⁴ cells mL^− 1) from February to May. The disappearance of Prochlorococcus from spring through summer is likely related to shifts in the prevailing current regime. The maximum total abundance of picophytoplankton was consistently found in late summer–early autumn. Mean photic-layer picoplanktonic chlorophyll a ranged from 0.06 to 0.53 µg L^− 1 with a relatively high mean contribution to total values (33 ± 2% SE), showing maxima around autumn and minima in spring. Biomass (range 0.58–40.16 mg C m^− 3) was generally dominated by picoeukaryotes (mean ± SE, 4.28 ± 0.27 mg C m^− 3) with an average contribution of cyanobacteria of 30 ± 2%. Different seasonality of pigment and biomass values resulted in a clear temporal pattern of picophytoplanktonic carbon to chlorophyll a ratio, which ranged from 10 (winter) to 140 (summer). This study highlights the important contribution of picoplanktonic chlorophyll a and carbon biomass in this coastal ecosystem.     

A new methodology for incident detection and characterization on surface streets

In this paper, a new methodology is presented for real-time detection and characterization of incidents on surface streets. The proposed automatic incident detection approach is capable of detecting incidents promptly as well as characterizing incidents in terms of time-varying lane-changing fractions and queue lengths in blocked lanes, lanes blocked due to incidents, and incident duration. The architecture of the proposed incident detection approach consists of three sequential procedures: (1) Symptom Identification for identification of incident symptoms, (2) Signal Processing for real-time prediction of incident-related lane traffic characteristics and (3) Pattern Recognition for incident recognition. Lane traffic counts and occupancy are the only two major types of input data, which can be readily collected from point detectors. The primary techniques utilized in this paper include: (1) a discrete-time, nonlinear, stochastic system with boundary constraints to predict real-time lane-changing fractions and queue lengths and (2) a pattern-recognition-based algorithm employing modified sequential probability ratio tests (MSPRT) to detect incidents. Off-line tests based on simulated as well as video-based real data were conducted to assess the performance of the proposed algorithm. The test results have indicated the feasibility of achieving real-time incident detection using the proposed methodology.     

Scheduling short-term marine transport of bulk products

A multinational company uses a personal computer to schedule a fleet of coastal tankers and barges transporting liquid bulk products among plants, distribution centres (tank farms), and industrial customers. A simple spreadsheet interface cloaks a sophisticated optimization-based decision support system and makes this system useable via a varity of natural languages. The dispatchers, whose native language is not English, and some of whom presumably speak no English at all, communicate via the spreadsheet, and view recommended schedules displayed in Gantt charts both internationally familiar tools. Inside the spreadsheet, a highly detailed simulation can generate every feasible alternate vessel employment schedule, and an integer linear set partitioning model selects one schedule for each vessel so that all loads and deliveries are completed at minimal cost while satisfying all operational requirements. The optimized fleet employment schedule is displyed graphically with hourly time resolution over a planning horizon of 2-3 weeks. Each vessel will customarily make several voyages and many port calls to load and unload products during this time.