Rizzoni Gave Keynote Presentation on the NEXTCAR Project during the 39th Annual Conference on Tire Science and Technology
Giorgio Rizzoni, professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering at The Ohio State University, presented the plenary lecture at the 39th Annual Conference on Tire Science and Technology on September 29, 2020. The conference was themed around “Intelligent Transportation” and was held virtually from September 28 to October 2, 2020.
Rizzoni shared his insight into how connectivity and automation could improve fuel economy through the scope of the ARPA-E NEXTCAR project at the Center for Automotive Research (CAR). “This three-year program, which closed in May of 2020, demonstrated that by taking advantage of automation and connectivity functions available in current-production vehicles, one could achieve fuel economy gains of the order of 20 percent.”
“There is a lot that can be done with connectivity and limited degrees of automation today to improve the fuel economy of vehicles. ARPA-E had the vision to launch this NEXTCAR project and demonstrate these capabilities. And one of these days, it may be that through automation and cooperative driving, we will be able to achieve system-level fuel economy improvements in large scale traffic that will by far exceed the individual improvements that you could make in a single vehicle,” concluded Rizzoni during the presentation. The NEXTCAR team has already begun planning to extend the project to explore the potential benefits of level 3-5 automation.
“The tire society conference meets annually to review progress and trends in tire technology,” said Rizzoni. “While we may not think much of tires, they are an essential component of every vehicle and have a profound influence on both vehicle energy use and safety. The objective of this plenary lecture was to present an overview of current technology trends related to vehicle fuel economy and automation to provide a broader perspective to this community.”
NEXTCAR is a three-year program developed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). The project aims to combine vehicle-level and powertrain-level controls to achieve a 20 percent improvement in fuel economy over current vehicles.
Written by CAR Writing Intern, David Wang
