Master Thesis: Start-Stop Tire for Vehicle Simulation

What is our offer to you?
Imagine being surrounded everyday by a diverse, fun, and passionate group of colleagues every day who you get to work with and enjoy eating lunch and having fika with. Now imagine that you work with these colleagues on some of the most advanced autonomous vehicle technology in the world. Add that you are working with these colleagues on this advanced technology in a culture that promotes growth, collaboration, trust and is striving to be the best autonomous solution verification and validation organization in the world!


Are you ready to join our team as a thesis worker and be part of shaping the future of the transportation industry with us?


Let us give you some background information
The start-stop scenarios of self-driving vehicles have shown control challenges. Most tire models for systems simulation use point-follower contact mechanics and the concept of slip over the entire range of the performance envelope. Published proposals on the notion of relaxation are to support start-stop have implausible dynamic behavior at and around stand-still. Non-physical additions to those models are to ensure simulation stability.
Recent publications have made advances in tire mechanics to address the relaxation problem. The notion of partial differential equations ending up in so called transport equations is deemed to clarify transient tire behavior at or near stand-still.


What about Volvo Autonomous Solutions?
At Volvo Autonomous Solutions, we are passionate about the positive impact autonomous solutions will have on our society. We are on a journey to create something unique, developing cutting-edge technologies and sustainable solutions that will change the future of transportation. With entirely new business models and advanced technology, we will meet and exceed expectations from customers and contributing to a society that we want to live in.


Who are you?
We don’t know you yet, but we believe that you are a highly motivated master thesis student with a genuine interest in system dynamics, mechanics and mathematics. Profiles of interest are mathematics, mechatronics, systems and controls. You are fluent in English, both written and spoken. Finally, it’s meritorious if you have knowledge of Python and Modelica.


Description of thesis work
The aim of this thesis is to performance analyze an autonomous vehicle application with respect to low-speed maneuvering in the simulation framework at Volvo Autonomous Solutions. The focus is the dynamic transient tire-road interaction for the horizontal forces in combined slip (lateral and longitudinal) situations. The intention is to find a robust and easy to use dynamic model for the application/s at hand.


What you will be doing
The work will include research literature, analyzing and modeling a dynamic tire interaction for horizontal forces. You will gather measurement data for reference and create FMU’s from Modelica models for the use in the simulation framework. In addition to this, you will document and report in English, as well as present the results.


Scope
One type of (existing) vehicle model is envisioned
Low speed maneuvering scenarios with start and stop
Used language/technologies; Modelica, Python and FMI
Dynamic horizontal tire force model



Thesis Level: Master
Language: English
Start date: January 2023
Number of students: 1 or 2
Tutor:
Edo Drenth, Simulation and Analysis Engineer, 0313227874
Mohamed Takkoush, Vehicle Dynamics Analyst, 0313237590


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