Vehicle Component Degradation Identification via Simulation Modeling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current maintenance protocols for vehicles rely heavily on experience-based troubleshooting and manual diagnostic trees, lacking a precise method to identify component degradation affecting vehicle performance, leading to inefficient and costly processes.
Innovation Solution
A machine and process that generates simulation configuration files to model vehicle performance, allowing for the selection and simulation of degraded component modes, generating performance data, and visualizing the effects on the vehicle's performance, including the use of six degrees of freedom equations for dynamic motion analysis.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If traditional experience-based troubleshooting and manual diagnostic trees are used to identify component degradation, then maintenance personnel can perform diagnostics without specialized equipment, but the identification process is time-consuming and prone to human error
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a virtual copy of the vehicle system through detailed mathematical modeling. The simulation model replicates the physical vehicle's behavior, allowing diagnostics to be performed on the virtual copy instead of the physical system. This enables rapid, repeated testing of component degradation scenarios without time-consuming physical inspections or test drives.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent pre-establishes comprehensive mathematical models of all vehicle components and their interactions before diagnostics are needed. These models include degradation patterns and performance relationships that are calculated in advance, enabling rapid identification of component issues when performance changes occur, rather than building diagnostic capability during the troubleshooting process.
2Productivity
If replacement of suspected degraded components is performed based on technician experience and test drives, then maintenance can be performed with simple tools and procedures, but the process is inefficient and costly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces physical test drives and manual component testing with computational simulations. Instead of mechanically testing components through road tests or using specialized diagnostic equipment, the system uses mathematical models to simulate component behavior and identify degradations, substituting computational analysis for physical experimentation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a computational model as an intermediary between the physical vehicle and the maintenance decision-making process. The simulation model acts as a mediator that translates complex component interactions into interpretable diagnostic information, bridging the gap between physical system behavior and maintenance actions without requiring direct physical intervention.
3Measurement precision
If precise dynamic functional modeling with state equations and equations of motion is applied to identify component degradation, then accurate identification of degraded components is achieved, but the complexity of the analysis system increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the vehicle system into discrete component models, each with its own mathematical representation. Instead of creating one monolithic complex model, the system segments the vehicle into manageable components (engine, transmission, control systems, etc.), each modeled separately but interconnected through the simulation framework, making the overall complex system tractable.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent utilizes parameter variations to simplify the modeling approach. By changing parameters such as component stiffness, damping coefficients, or mass properties in the mathematical models to represent degraded states, the system can identify component issues through parameter estimation rather than requiring complex structural modifications to the models themselves.
Data Source
AI summary
A machine and process for identifying an effect on a performance of a vehicle by a component thereof. The process may include a processor that may include a vehicle performance processor generating a simulation configuration file for a model of a mechanical system that controls the performance of the vehicle and for a power system that controls the mechanical system of the vehicle; providing a visual interface for selecting a degraded mode of a component within the mechanical system or the power system; generating a simulation configuration file introducing the degraded mode of a selected component within the model; running, using a modification scripting of the degraded mode of the selected component, a simulation generating performance data for the vehicle; and transforming the performance data to a visualization of the performance of the vehicle.