Prototyping EcoCAR Connected Vehicle Testing System Using DigiCAV Development Platform

The EcoCAR Mobility Challenge is the latest iteration of the Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Vehicle Technology Competitions organized by Argonne National Laboratory (ANL). EcoCAR’s new focus on Connected and Automated Vehicle (CAV) technology will require the development of new methods and tools for fairly assessing energy usage for each of the university prototype vehicles. This paper serves to introduce potential methods for assessing CAV technology energy impacts in controlled urban and highway proving ground environments. In addition, it describes the development process of a target vehicle test system in collaboration with HORIBA MIRA. The system, based on HORIBA MIRA’s DigiCAV platform, will accelerate test system development for EcoCAR and produce a test environment with both real and simulated target vehicles for accurately assessing EcoCAR prototype vehicle implementations of hybrid powertrains and CAV features. The authors developed and validated a Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) test setup to perform initial calibrations of vehicle-specific DigiCAV controller implementations and will be testing those implementations in the next phase of development.