Title:

“Predictive Energy Management in Networked Vehicles: Exploiting Traffic and Terrain Preview for Fuel Saving”

Speaker:

Dr. Ardalan Vahidi

Affiliation:

Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Clemson University

When:

Friday, September 24, 2010 at 11:00:00 AM   Add to Calendar

Where:

Whitaker (BME) Building, Room 1103

Host:

Dr. Book, Dr. Meyer, and GA Transportation Inst.
wayne.book@me.gatech.edu
4048944732

Abstract

This presentation summarizes our recent findings on the role that preview information of terrain, traffic signal timing, and traffic flow can have in fuel savings of “networked’’ vehicles with conventional or hybrid powertrains. Terrain and traffic information is now available through various providers and can be integrated into the vehicle navigation system or into its add-on accessories. However systematic methods for utilizing this rich and dynamic information have not been explored in the past. We present methodologies that plan over time the best vehicle velocity profile (or battery utilization for hybrid vehicles) that reduces fuel consumption and emissions with minimal influence on trip time. We cast these problems in a dynamic constrained optimization framework with partial future information. Standard numerical solution via dynamic programming is viable but requires full information of future events. Receding finite-horizon optimization along with predictive models of traffic will be explored as a mean to tackle missing information and the computational cost of dynamic programming.

Biography

Ardalan Vahidi received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2005. He had obtained his B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering in 1996 and 1998 from Sharif University of Technology and his second M.S. in Transportation Safety in 2002 from George Washington University, Washington DC. He is now an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Clemson University in South Carolina, USA. His current research interests are in optimization-based control methods and control of vehicular and energy systems.