Cidaut and Valladolid City Councill will test connectivity solutions for intelligent transport applications

In the frame of Urbane, Horizon Europe Project, the research center and the municipality will collaborate to advance in the integration of zero emission vehicles and intelligent transport solutions for advanced last mile delivery solutions. The project has started on September 2022, and will last for 42 months. In this time, smart urban electric vehicles, vans and bikes, will be used to develop advanced last mile solutions based on connectivity solutions, protection of vulnerable road users and energy harvesting through photovoltaic panels integrated in the vehicles.

In relation to connectivity, the vehicles will be able to “talk” with all the elements around to reduce their carbon footprint, V2X. In the case of vehicle to vehicle communication, V2V, the vehicles of the fleet will inform each other about the load capacity available and the final destination, to optimize the number of vehicles moving to the different zones of the city, In the case of vehicle to infrastructure, V2I, the traffic lights will inform the vehicles about the time to green or to red, and the vehicles will be able to optimize their speed in order to minimize the electricity consumption. In the case of vehicle to customer, V2C, the vehicle will inform the customer about the parcel delivery, and if the customer accepts it will be possible to remotely open the trunk of his/her vehicle to deliver the parcel.

In relation to vulnerable road users protection, it is a fact that electric vehicles are less noisy and then more dangerous for vulnerable road users, mainly taking into account that last mile logistics may be concentrated in center areas of the cities. For this reason, the vehicles used in the project are equipped with artificial intelligence that allows the detection and recognition of vulnerable road users, advising the driver or automatically braking the vehicle in the case of risky situations.

Energy harvesting will be made thanks to the installation of advanced photovoltaics cells in the surface of the vehicles, laboratory tests, made previously to the project, have demonstrated that in the case of the van, and under ideal conditions, 25 km of totally free emissions can be run. One of the aims of the project is to demonstrate the performance in real traffic conditions.

The research leading to these results has received funding from Horizon Europe Programme under grant agreement nº 101069782.

CIDAUT at TRA

Together with its partners Cidaut has presented the results of URBAN-EV

From 16th to 19 April, Wien has become the focus of mobility solutions thanks to the celebration of TRA 2018. TRA 2018 is an arena for researchers, companies and public authorities active in the field of transport. It welcomes policy makers and stakeholders framing research and transport policy. Together they have shared and discussed new ideas, research results, technological solutions and new business models. Together they have experienced and shaped the future of transport and mobility for people and goods.

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Key focus areas have been:

  • How digitalisation is transforming transport & mobility systems
  • Decarbonisation & future growth – how to change our mobility system & remain competitive
  • Shaping the new mobility landscape – a vision for transport & mobility for Europe

In this scenario, Cidaut presented one of the three prototypes of the URBAN-EV project. The target of the project is to apply innovative manufacturing technologies and materials to produce prototypes of a two seats urban electric vehicle with enhanced range and similar occupant safety level than a standard passenger car.

In the actual moment three prototypes of the vehicle are being built, one of them for functional testing and the others for lateral and frontal crash tests. The unit shown in Wien was the frontal crash test one and it created high expectation mainly due to the complex design and join technologies used to bring together different advanced material such as magnesium, structural thermoplastic, aluminum and high strength steel.

A handful of electric vehicle and automated driving events

Cidaut has participated in EV2017, CIBIM17, 21CMH and LEVS2017

The last quarter of the year has been very active for Cidaut’s participation in events related to electromobility and automated driving. Going in chronological order, on October 5th and 6th, Cidaut was present at EV2017, Electric Vehicles International Conference & Show in Bucarest Romania. This event, technically co-sponsored by the IEEE, is a hub for electric mobility professionals with the possibility of presenting technical advances and testing the last novelties in sustainable solutions. In this scenario, and under the title “Lightweighting and passive safety for urban electric vehicle”, Cidaut presented a summary of the advanced technical solutions applied to three different solutions of urban electric vehicles structures: one of them based on CFRP, another one on multi-material and the last one on high strength steel solutions.

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Between the 23rd and 26th of October, Cidaut participated in CIBIM17, the XIII Congreso Iberoamericano de Ingeniería Mecánica, in Lisbon, Portugal. This event is a meeting with participants from most of the American countries and also from Europe with the aim of sharing the best practices in the Mechanical Engineering field. In this occasion Cidaut made a presentation entitled “Design and manufacturing of an urban, light, affordable and safe electric vehicle”. The most relevant results of the Urban-EV project were presented. Urban-EV is a European Project funded by the EC in the 7th Frame Programme that aims to reduce the weight of an urban electric vehicle using innovative solutions in materials and processes and improving at the same time the crashworthiness of the vehicle.

On the same week, between the 25th and 27th of October, Cidaut presented in San Sebastian, Spain, its vision on the future steps on automated vehicles. In the frame of The Future of Advance Manufacturing Congress, and under the title “Implementation of connected vehicles and autonomous driving in the market. Evolution or revolution”, Cidaut exposed the equilibrium needed between the evolution of the connectivity the ADAS and the infrastructure in order to cover the necessary steps to reached the automated driving in a balanced way.

And finally, by the end of November, 22nd and 23rd, Cidaut participated in LEVS 2017, the Light Electric Vehicle Summit, presenting the paper “Passive safety in different structures of light electric vehicles”. In this occasion Cidaut showed the crass test results under simulation and testing of three different European Projects all of them from the 7th Frame Programme: elight, Plus-Moby and Urban-EV. The main message of this presentation is that it is possible to design and manufacture light urban electric vehicles with high safety standards. In this event Cidaut is also part of the Scientific Committee.

CIDAUT participates in the round table “The future of the automotive sector” organized by Hyundai, Bosch and El Español.

Madrid, 6th July 2017. The digital newspaper El Español, together with Hyundai and Bosch, organized a round table to discuss the multiple challenges of the automotive sector. Under the title “The future of the automotive sector” the meeting gathered more than ten experts that went into deep analysis of aspects related to the innovation, connectivity and disruptive technologies in the sector. The working day was divided in two main topics: Electromobility and Connectivity and Autonomous Driving.

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From left to right: Ricardo Olalla (Bosch); Carlos de la Cruz (CDTI); Javier Arboleda (Hyundai); Felipe Jiménez (INSIA); Roberto Álvarez (University  of Nebrija); Susana Gómez (DGT); Zaira Unzue (IBIL); Javier Romo (CIDAUT); Cecilia Medina, (SERNAUTO) and Miguel Ángel Uriondo (EL ESPAÑOL).

CIDAUT participated in the Connectivity and Autonomous Driving round table where the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the automated driving were analyzed from different points of view. CIDAUT’s representative highlighted the opportunities to enhance the driving safety and the inclusion of elder population and disabled people to be included in the mobility of the future. The importance of the autonomous vehicles to reduce the time-out and to improve the exploitation of the urban space was also explained. It was indicated that the development of the autonomous vehicle has to run in parallel and in a balanced way with the development of the connectivity, but not only the long range communication based on mobile application but also the short time communication based on emerging technologies. The seamless connectivity is a must to advance in the different levels of automation defined by SAE J3016.

Also CIDAUT`s representative highlighted the importance of the infrastructure for the transition phase to the automated mobility. Vehicles of different automation levels are going to share the roads for several decades and the infrastructure is the main responsible actor to homogenize this traffic. Another aspect to be taken into account is the acceptance by the users of the different Advanced Driving Assistance Systems, they should be friendly and in some cases transparent to the users.

Successful end of Free-Moby and Plus-Moby projects.

Both European projects have run parallel for three years to balance the vehicle and infrastructure development.

Both projects are aimed to take advantage of the solar energy for electromobility. They work on the same vehicle, but Free-Moby is focused on the infrastructure while Plus-Moby’s target is the vehicle itself, which is an L7 type vehicle.

The vehicle has the possibility to be charged trough a connector but also by battery swapping. Then the batteries can be charged both in the vehicle and at home. Free-Moby has developed an innovative charging system based on photovoltaic energy. The photovoltaic installation is connected to a battery rack where there are several modules equal to the ones installed in the vehicle. The battery rack has been developed to allow the control of the energy flux attending to the user’s needs.

The battery rack is connected to the grid and the home in such a way that allows the energy flux between photovoltaic panels, vehicle, home grid and stationary batteries. The efforts made to develop the communication of the whole system allow making the best decision on the energy flux taking into account the state of charge of the batteries, the energy necessity at home and the energy pricing or the foreseen consumption. Cidaut has developed its own rack based on a 6kW photovoltaic parking that has installed at its facilities.

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Plus-Moby project has been focused on the development of the vehicle and in order to harvest solar energy, it has several panels in the roof of the vehicle and an additional panel covers the wind screen when the vehicle is closed. Other particularity of the vehicle is the two independent motors for each of the axles. In the last phase of Plus-Moby, Cidaut’s efforts have been focused on ensuring the crashworthiness of the vehicle. After the optimization of the vehicle through a iterative simulation process, three frontal crash tests and one lateral crash have been performed demonstrating that the safety level of this light vehicle is equivalent to conventional M category ones. The crashes have demonstrated the great stability of the vehicle structure, and the high protection of the passengers. After all the crashes it was possible to open the doors and the evaluation of the damage in the occupants has been positive.

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