Intelligent In-Vehicle Road Management Boosts Hybrid-Car Efficiency

Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) is believed to be effective in improving transportation safety and efficiency. For a driver, the most concerned benefits are time saving and fuel efficiency. An article from Peter Fairley, IEEE Spectrum Online, reports the research by Yaoyu Li, an mechatronics expert in University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, which has developed control algorithms that use route and traffic data to allow hybrid vehicles to plan how and when to use stored battery power so as to burn as little gasoline as possible.


PHOTO: David Lewis/iStockphoto (source IEEE Spectrum on-line)

"The idea has merit, according to Tom Robinson, senior manager, control and electronics, at automotive-systems supplier Ricardo, in Shoreham-by-Sea, England. “If you know what’s forthcoming, you can inform vehicle systems to operate more effectively,” says Robinson, whose company has worked on similar algorithms for conventional hybrids. "

The foreseeable effective ITS would consist not only the infrastructure and solutions providing the real-time information from environments, but also mechanisms that use such information and turn the information into real profits for users. Li's research exactly addressed and revealed the potential of the latter.

Article source and photo courtesy: Software Looks at the Road Ahead to Boost Hybrid-Car Efficiency, by Peter Fairley First Published February 2009