Virtual Road Load Data Acquisition using MATLAB for Gearboxes

RLDA (Road Load Data Acquisition) is a process of acquiring load response of subject vehicles against actual driving conditions on test tracks or actual roads. Vehicle response parameters such as engine torque, engine speed, gear position, wheel torque etc. are measured during this acquisition. The acquired data is processed to derive duty cycles for component level validation on test benches and provides important information about the behavior of subject vehicles to further optimize components. RLDA can only be done on prototype vehicles or a similar vehicle available in market. RLDA requires specific instruments for acquisition of data. There is always a possibility of any failure of the recording equipment or sensor or component of prototype vehicle during measurement, which will affect the complete activity, project timeline and accuracy of measurement. The paper proposes a methodology to conduct RLDA virtually for powertrain using tool developed in MATLAB. Vehicle parameters, driveline component details, drive cycles etc. will be used as an input to derive time series data. This data is further converted to distance domain for derivation of the duty cycle for the powertrain components. The simulated duty cycle generated using the proposed tool show good amount of correlation with duty cycle derived by physical measurements on intended vehicle.