FUTURE PROOFING: Argonne Works to make the future of Automotive bright

BY DICK MORTON

Car efficiency and automation are key topics in this new decade. At Argonne labs, various commercial, everyday vehicles and concepts are tested in a number of ways. The world’s biggest car companies send their vehicles here to be tested for efficiency, sensor testing, autonomous driving, and the eventual grid that will wirelessly connect every vehicle on the road to each other once 5G has rolled out.

During Hinsdale Magazine’s visit to Argonne, their automotive engineers were testing a vehicle on a dyno-machine. At Argonne Labs, they have a very special machine that basically puts a car on a treadmill of sorts, but instead of a rubber belt, each tire rest on two stainless steel drums that roll with the tire.

In order to simulate real world variables, the whole machine is in a giant freezer/oven. At any given time, engineers can change the temperature of the sealed room from arctic temperatures to searing hot desert climates. The vehicle being tested is put through real world paces. Basically, the equivalent of stop and go traffic combined with high speed highway driving with the usual slowdowns and occasional traffic.

be controlled either manually by a human driver or by an automated robot that sits in the driver’s seat. This robot is basically just legs that are a series of actuators and servos that resemble human legs and hips that is controlled by a computer. When controlled by the robot, the AI very accurately follows a line on a graph that depicts desired speed for the test. Kevin Stutenberg, Argonne Research Engineer stated though "human control is still by far more accurate. Sometimes it’s required, such as for manual transmission vehicles that they very rarely test these days." Unfortunate news for us “manual transmission” enthusiasts.

During testing, several sensors and probes take in huge amounts of data on the vehicle. Everything they test for at any staterun vehicle emission testing facility is tested here using a standard On-Board Diagnostic (OBD) plug that’s on every vehicle. Only each reading from the OBD is feed into its own individual computer to monitor and compile the data.

Although, they often have more connected than just the OBD. Wires are feed though back windows surrounded by bath towels to protect the car window and the cables running though it. This also helps seal up the car for when they are running the heat or the AC as part of testing scenarios.

Sometimes the data is so large and complex, Argonne’s Automotive Testing Department’s computers just can’t keep up. So occasionally they get help from Argonne’s Supercomputers, Mira or Theta. To do so is very costly, and if the car company doing the testing wants any information to be kept confidential, they have to pay for all of the testing out of pocket. That includes everything from using the supercomputer and testing facilities to paying for the energy bill required to run it all.

Therefore, most of the research acquired from various automotive companies is shared with the world. If the US Government is flipping the bill for the research, that information thus should be free for anyone to use. This freedom of information allows for better and faster innovation at lower costs for the manufacturer who in turn will keep costs low for the consumer. It also allows for more efficient cars to be made available to the public quicker which helps to make the environment better globally. The vital automotive research done at Argonne Labs will bring the car of the future tomorrow, and help future-proof the next car that you buy. ■