How Simulation Accelerates Vehicle Electrification
Alan Amici, Center for Automotive Research
Awad Syed, Our Next Energy
Adithya Vignesh Jayaraman, Rivian Automotive
Watch excerpts from interviews at MathWorks Automotive Conference with engineers from the Center for Automotive Research, Our Next Energy, Rivian Automotive, and MathWorks, who discuss how simulation with MATLAB®, Simulink®, and Simscape™ is an enabling technology for the electrification of passenger vehicles.
These engineers share their thoughts on how the transition to battery-operated vehicles is driving the need for more simulation in the design of electric powertrains. The use of simulation models helps automotive engineers ideate, arriving at designs faster and with more confidence. Using MATLAB and Simulink, with specific automotive libraries, helps engineers address the challenges of what powertrain configuration to use and how to meet range requirements.
For automotive engineers developing the next generation of electric vehicles, MathWorks offers complete workflows, from design to real-time testing to production implementation of embedded software.
Published: 20 Sep 2023
The rate and pace of innovation in the auto industry is really accelerated, especially in the past 10 years. In moving from internal combustion engine powered vehicles to EVs, a lot of the barriers to entry have been reduced. And that's why you've seen a lot of startups in the EV space.
How would what kind of battery pack, what kind of a motor, or what kind of a drivetrain you would need? That's where simulation helps you.
So I think simulations are a big part of automotive development in general. And as we start the transition towards software defined vehicles, you start seeing that simulations play a bigger role as we go forward.
The struggle I have seen in my experience over the years is people struggle to ideate systems. This is where simulation comes in as number one.
So the goal is how do you empower or enable all of these engineers to run vehicle simulations at scale for different technical requirements that they may have? And we found that using MathWorks products, we are able to build a good ecosystem of simulation tools, which enables all engineers really, irrespective of their background. They need not be simulation geeks to actually be able to run vehicle simulations.
All our modeling work is done extensively in Simulink. The toolboxes, especially Simscape, has a lot of discrete electrical components. And I'm really impressed by the fidelity of this toolbox because it has helped us even in some cases understand limitations of existing designs.
So we need to rely on our internal vehicle models to simulate a lot of these tests. And there's obviously a way cheaper and less time consuming option as well.
There's a couple of barriers that people have in mind with respect to EVs. The first one was range anxiety. And I think people are getting over that now.
So how do you ensure that any configuration that you're working on for a future product meets your range targets? And there's a simulation model that can help you do exactly that. You mix and match different tires, different battery components, different powertrain options, and you get at least a reasonable estimate of where your range could be.
We have solutions that go from the requirements to the testing in real time, all the way through modeling the physics, integrating it with the controller, generating code.
Every company I've joined or every team that I've worked on has a core use case for MATLAB.
I only learned one tool in college, that was Simulink. And it has done wonders to my growth as an engineer and as a professional.
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