Title: Recent Progress in AI-empowered Vehicle Powertrain Development and Perspectives of Future Trends
Abstract:
Achieving carbon neutrality requires global actions, and vehicle electrification is the main strategy for decarbonization in the transport sector. The new vehicle testing procedures using Real Driving Emissions (RDE) tests have also brought in new, immediate challenges to the electrified vehicle which may count for more than 90% of the vehicles on the market by the year 2050. Many unpredictable factors under real-world driving conditions, including components aging, however, cannot be fully considered or dealt with during the vehicle R&D process. Recently, the combination of IoT and AI technologies has emerged with the potential to revolutionize adaptive dynamic optimization and control of vehicle operation. This lecture will introduce the recent progress of AI technologies for vehicle control and optimization, including offline optimization based on evolutionary computation, online control optimization based on reinforcement learning, and transfer learning technics for boosting the R&D process. The effectiveness of the proposed AI methods will be demonstrated based on the industry projects conducted at the University of Birmingham, and the outlook on powertrain technology development under the Industry4.0 era will be discussed.
Biography:
Hongming Xu is Professor of Energy and Automotive Engineering and Head of the Vehicle Technology Research Centre. He is Director of Birmingham C.A.S.E. Automotive Research and Education Centre. He has 6 years of industrial experience with Jaguar Land Rover and Premier Automotive Group of Ford. He researches synergies between fuel, propulsion, and after-treatment technologies for cleaner road vehicles. He has 450+ publications (including 200+ refereed journal papers and 200+ conference publications) in engine flow, combustion, emissions, transient operation control, and hybrid electric powertrain development involving both experimental and modeling studies. His current main research area is new fuels and electrified powertrains with artificial intelligence based control and optimization.
