HOUGHTON—Michigan Technological University, BorgWarner, and other industry partners will collaborate on a 27-month, $1.99 million research project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy to reduce energy consumption through connected vehicle technologies.
Included will be vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) technologies on vehicles of various types, from light to heavy duty, powered by different propulsion systems with varied levels of connectivity and driving automation.
Slated to kick off in October, the project is one of 55 that recently won federal funding in support of DOE’s Energy Storage Grand Challenge, a strategy to position the U.S. as a global leader in energy storage technology, utilization and exports.
“We have collaborated successfully with Michigan Tech in various capacities throughout the years and believe this joint effort will have a significant impact on energy optimization in the future,” said Frédéric Lissalde, BorgWarner president and CEO. “As a global leader in propulsion systems, we are looking forward to utilizing our engineering expertise to test, simulate and analyze how we can use connectivity to impact our various propulsion systems in order to help the industry achieve substantial efficiency improvements.”
To support the project, BorgWarner plans to work on propulsion system modeling for vehicles and significant development of the control system architecture to support analysis work for energy reduction. While much of the project will be done remotely, BorgWarner expects to also assist with vehicle testing and demonstrations at the American Center for Mobility in Ypsilanti. The project gives BorgWarner the opportunity to target efficiency improvements to its transmission and engine sub-system components via connectivity enhancement.
“Being able to leverage BorgWarner’s propulsion know-how is critical to the success of this project,” said Darrell Robinette, assistant professor of mechanical engineering-engineering mechanics at Michigan Tech. “We couldn’t be more pleased with the team we’ve built and are excited to further strengthen our relationships with BorgWarner and our other participating partners.”
In addition to BorgWarner and MTU, Traffic Technology Services, American Center for Mobility, AVL Powertrain Engineering Inc. and Navistar will participate in the project.