Fleet Fuel Waste Analysis via Actuator Signal Integration
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Solution Overview
Problem
Despite advancements in vehicle technology such as hybrid-electric drivetrains, aerodynamics, and low rolling-resistance tires, driving habits like over-speeding, rapid acceleration, and excessive idling continue to contribute significantly to fuel consumption, necessitating a solution to optimize fuel efficiency in vehicle fleets.
Innovation Solution
A system comprising a powertrain controller that provides fuel pump actuator signals to a vehicle bus, a processor that accumulates and analyzes fuel usage data, and a remote server that computes and reports fuel waste, particularly during idle times, enabling fleet managers to identify and mitigate wasteful driver behaviors.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If fuel pump actuator signals are integrated to accumulate precise fuel usage data, then measurement precision of fuel consumption is improved, but device complexity increases due to additional monitoring and data processing requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses an intermediary processing system that receives fuel pump actuator signals from the powertrain controller, integrates them to calculate fuel usage, and then transmits the processed data to the fleet management server. This intermediary layer simplifies the overall system by handling the complex integration and calculation tasks in a centralized manner rather than requiring complex distributed processing across multiple components.
2Loss of information
If comprehensive fuel usage data is collected and transmitted to remote servers, then information completeness for fleet management is improved, but loss of time for data processing and transmission increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary integration of fuel pump actuator signals locally in the vehicle to accumulate fuel usage data before transmission. By pre-processing the data and maintaining running totals of fuel consumption, the system reduces the amount of raw data that needs to be transmitted to the remote server, thereby reducing transmission time while still providing complete fuel usage information.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements periodic transmission of accumulated fuel usage data to the remote server, creating a feedback loop where fleet managers can monitor fuel consumption patterns and provide guidance to drivers. The periodic nature of the feedback allows for timely information updates without requiring continuous real-time transmission, balancing information completeness with time efficiency.
3Productivity
If idle time periods are identified and fuel waste is computed, then productivity of fleet management is improved through better resource optimization, but device complexity increases due to additional analysis requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts and isolates idle time periods from the continuous fuel usage data by analyzing patterns in the accumulated fuel consumption information. By separating idle events from productive operation data, the system can specifically target and address fuel waste without requiring complex analysis of the entire operational dataset, thereby improving fleet management productivity with manageable complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A powertrain controller of a vehicle provides a fuel pump actuator signal indicative of fuel flow to a vehicle bus. A processor is configured to receive data from the vehicle bus. The processor performs an integration of the actuator signal to accumulate fuel usage of the vehicle, and periodically sends the accumulated fuel usage, vehicle speed, engine speed, engine status, and vehicle location to a remote server. A subset of accumulated fuel usage is retrieved for a set of the vehicles of a fleet traversing a route during a timeframe, the accumulated fuel usage compiled from fuel pump actuator signals. Fuel waste is computed for identified idle time periods within the accumulated fuel usage. Monetary waste is computed from the fuel waste. A report is generated including the monetary waste.