Preliminary Conference Program

California has just launched the Clean Off Road Equipment (CORE) incentive program, managed by Calstart and modeled on the successful HVIP on-road incentive program. CORE targets the leading equipment segments most ready for zero-emissions operations (terminal/yard tractors, TRUs, GSE, cargo lifts and other segments) and provides funding to cover incremental cost and infrastructure to help operators more quickly shift to cleaner equipment. Calstart will highlight how the programs work, the status of the eligible technologies, future equipment categories that could be included, how this will support the global market supply chain, and the applicability of this program to other regions.

Volvo Group has shifted to electromobility throughout its business – from trucks and buses to marine and construction equipment. This presentation will discuss the market-leading innovation journey of Volvo CE as the company moves from prototype machines and research projects through to an industry-first commitment to stop development of diesel-based compact machines and the launch of their electric counterparts. It will address the challenges of adapting electromobility to the market, and also the successes that have emerged from customer trials, including the ECR25 Electric’s debut at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in the UK.

Industrial vehicles pose a challenge to the engineer at a system level. It is imperative to decarbonize operations while remaining economically sustainable and clean. Coupled with challenging operational needs, a flexible approach to both use and storage of onboard energy is required. This paper reviews options we are assessing and how they might expedite adoption of environmentally beneficial technology.

This presentation will take the audience through a recently published (November 2019) long-term forecast on OHV electrification trends at the global level. It will present a technology roadmap for OHV hybrid technology toward 2030 and beyond, introducing key drivers of electrification, and discussing market and technology trends and latest product advancements by OEMs. An off-highway equipment demand forecast will be revealed, predicting a brighter future for electrified machines. The market is expected to grow more than twofold by 2025. By 2030, the majority of OEMs will have ventured into the electrification domain.

This presentation will review Doosan’s strategies for electrification with 48V mild/full hybrid and e-powerpack – the Intelligent Hybrid Powertrain. This will include the concept and architecture, and results of development (simulation, bench and vehicle test).

Electrification of construction machinery can offer a significant positive impact on productivity, operating cost and the environment. So why aren't we seeing many more electric construction machines in the field? The presentation will describe Danfoss's strategy to support our customers in overcoming the challenges of electrifying construction machinery. It will illustrate how we are utilizing the different technologies and capabilities in our organization to develop electrification solutions. The presented use case is a 13t wheel loader that was converted to a fully electric machine at our Application Development Center.

Carraro defined its sustainability path looking at the vehicle and drivetrain electrification as a significant opportunity in order to limit emissions without reducing productivity and efficiency. We'll start from the Carraro process and methodologies in order to identify the right electric architecture and sizing the e-components through a model & simulation approach based on vehicle data and duty cycle. This process will be applied to a real use case focused on the electrification of a compact wheel loader and it will lead to two different solutions based on two different voltage levels with pro & cons and business cases

This work presents the use of system dynamics simulation for the evaluation of architectural structure that may include various energy sources for compaction drives. We use simulation to quantify compaction performance in terms of energy usage and components value proposition. We use AMESIM as the system dynamics modeling environment. AMESIM allows us to explore various electric architectures and compare them with hydraulic architectures in terms of energy efficiency. This choice also allows us to use the system dynamics models that we built for trade-off studies in co-simulation mode as plant models for algorithmic controls development. Decoupled dynamics justify run-time efficiency.

As electrification hits the automotive industry, not only passenger cars are affected. Trucks and off-road applications are explored for alternative drives as well. Here, no high speeds have to be achieved, and most of the time machines with high torque are required. AVL will give an overview of current developments in this area, including challenges for these applications and machine types, and solutions to achieve the best torque densities.

This paper presents a modular and scalable electric drive platform for NRMMs. The platform is part of a research project called Muffel+ funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The platform can be integrated into different machines with different performance classes. The modular and scalable electric drive platform will be demonstrated using the example of a hybrid multifunctional vehicle. The research project includes drive motors, power electronics and an intelligent control and cooling concept for the powertrain. The platform offers the possibility to integrate compact function-integrated components, which are produced by additive manufacturing.

With governments worldwide seeking to reduce GHG emissions, road transport is being targeted to shift to net-zero emissions. However, changes to the supply chain and energy system will disproportionately impact non-road mobile machinery manufacturers and end users, which benefit from close links to heavy road transport. The presentation will assess the benefits and challenges in the adoption of net zero in the agricultural, construction and materials handling segments.

If we want to be prepared for the future and zero-emission terminals, we should be discussing how we can flexibly and efficiently cater to changing duty cycle demands in various applications, with a good energy management strategy between fuel cell and battery maintaining the longevity of fuel cell systems and batteries.

Many drivers are in favor of electrification: low-emission zones, workplace emissions regulations, Stage V below 19kW. System simulation is a key asset for exploring electrification, by enabling the identification of electrical system requirements, supporting the pre-sizing of electric motor, power electronics and battery, and addressing the validation of components development versus system requirements (autonomy, aging, thermal management, power).

This presentation will give an overview of the global off-highway vehicle market and forecast toward low- and zero-emission solutions. This will include a discussion on our approach of looking at vehicle application/duty cycle, and how this impacts the trend toward electrification. The speaker will also offer an insight into the industrial Li-ion battery market, forward production and pricing trends, and the impact on off-highway electrification uptake. An overview of urban low- and zero-emission zones, and how these are driving early adoption, will also be given. There will also be discussion of the impact of on-highway commercial vehicle market electrification, including technology transition/migration and a detailed focus on China, and how new policies and company direction will impact the global market.

It is not only efficient components that result in high energy-saving potential. It is also necessary to consider the system, the drivetrain and the duty cycles. The presentation will show different approaches.

Off-road vehicles contribute over 2% of global greenhouse gases. High energy use, tough environments, linear motions and cost pressures make electrification difficult. But there is low-hanging fruit: existing off-highway hydraulic systems waste 50-70% of the engine’s useful energy. Digital Displacement technology offers the industry a new roadmap to deliver dramatic efficiency improvements in hydraulic systems, reducing emissions and fuel costs while increasing productivity. Focusing on excavators, the presentation will show the latest results on an evolutionary path from today’s analog hydraulics toward fully digital hydraulic systems that will reduce fuel consumption (or battery size) by 50% or more.

Terberg Benschop BV has been manufacturing electrically powered terminal tractors since 2012 and noticed the need for optimum range while maintaining comfortable working conditions for the operator as well as optimally temperature controlled battery packs. To enhance our product offering and achieve these goals, for our third-generation EV terminal tractors we have partnered with Ymer for the TMS (thermal management system). Ymer Technology is a specialist in complex cooling systems and has developed a fully integrated TMS system for EV machines. Both companies will share the challenges and opportunities during the development of a tailored and integrated TMS for an EV-terminal tractor as well as the machine and TMS system behavior and performance based on intensive testing.

Rare earth magnets (REM) have cost volatility and availability issues that affect the industries using them. High efficiency, silent operation, cost-effectiveness, energy recovery and performance are key factors in next-gen IVT applications. Synchronous reluctance motors (SRM) are the low-torque ripple solution, removing REM dependence. Regenerative electrohydraulic application driven by REM-free SRM is achievable through integrated engineering of electromagnetic, mechanical vibration reduction and hydraulic unit design. A pump-motor unit based on no-noise two- (Continuum) or four- (Continuum 4Q) quadrant technology creates a highly efficient, compact and regenerative simplified electrohydraulic design. New design features include energy recovery, no noise, low vibrations, and high dynamics and power density.

The e-powertrain of future electric vehicles (EVs) should be efficiently designed and managed to maximize the driving range while the total costs be minimized. For this, a complex multi-objective dynamic mixed-integer nonlinear programming optimization problem needs to be solved. The major reason of the complexity lies in the hybridization of EVs with different types of power sources. Therefore, the optimization problem aims to minimize the operation costs (probabilistic) during the lifetime of EV (e.g., 15-year prediction horizon) and the initial costs (deterministic) by finding both the size and the number of components while satisfying all constraints.

As an electrification partner to international brands, Hyperdrive has partnered with multiple OEMs to develop their electric product ranges. We share some of the most common problems our customers face and advise best practices for system design. This includes expert knowledge on new product development, minimizing development costs and reducing time to market, especially for OEMs without in-house electrification expertise. We will also discuss considerations related to battery safety, system sizing, thermal management, battery management system (BMS) integration, and integration of batteries into the client’s control and power systems.

Picking the right battery charger is a critical design choice for electrified vehicles. Your industrial vehicle needs an efficient and robust onboard charging system that can withstand harsh environments and use. A modular battery charging system has advantages over a single bulky charger, including packaging and installation flexibility, reliability and total cost of ownership.

The presentation will discuss lightweight design and production in the off-highway and utility environments, and what they mean for complete structures and system modules for high-tech cabs. In particular, it will describe how Fritzmeier came up with solutions for lightweight cab design in the context of production operations. It will outline the aluminum extrusion process in detail and explain how it enables the production of aluminum sections with high precision, different wall thicknesses and multiple chambers, aligned with the central benefits of safety, ergonomics, comfort and economy, and the key benefit of functional integration capability.

In strong collaboration with OEMs, Danfoss developed a new on-road steer-by-wire subsystem solution called Flex-Steer. With the removal of the steering column and steering wheel, the solution allows for an unobstructed view of the area directly in front of the cabin, and Danfoss shows leadership and innovation regarding designing cabins and machines. The subsystem solution consists of a new active force-feedback joystick and electrohydraulic steering valve, where the control architecture between joystick and valve is fail-operational. Integrating a steer-by-wire solution results in better visibility, less operator fatigue and higher productivity, which are all factors that create improved operator experience.

Off-highway equipment OEMs are realizing that product success hinges, in large part, on customers’ emotional attachment to products. In the past, to develop a product, customer requirements were collected, designers took their best shot and manufacturers hoped for the best. Today, with driver-in-the-loop (DIL) simulation, manufacturers are capturing and leveraging operator feedback earlier in their processes to ensure product designs and user expectations are aligned. This presentation will look at how the interaction between human and machine is now at the center of design, with prototyping and design technologies such as simulation and digital twins driving decision making.

Due to partially contradicting trends in the NRMM sector and therefore in the cab business, it is becoming increasingly essential to understand the specific needs of all stakeholders involved. Technical innovations, new processes and technologies constantly push the limits. But human desires and expectations are also changing. In this context, industrial design can play an important role and help businesses to thrive. This presentation will address some of the topics and show, with practical examples, how to use industrial design as a key factor of success.

Vehicle design does not always consider all the necessary information about cab design. And vice versa. This can make the cab installation a critical phase that can slow down the whole project. It is possible to accelerate this phase by combining experience in vehicle engineering with indispensable skills for the development of cabs for industrial vehicles. The interpretation of technical needs, feasibility checks, project development and production support gives birth to a real project accelerator. The result is a perfectly integrated, technologically innovative and functional cab, with guaranteed, efficient industrialization that brings consistent savings in time, money and resources.

Automation has as much potential to reshape the design of industrial vehicles as it does to affect their operation. Generative design is an evolving CAD capability that leverages AI to automatically generate designs fulfilling the engineer’s system requirements. By generating designs that perform better and use less material than human-designed parts, generative will unlock a revolution in efficiency. Industrial vehicle designers will be able to optimize their designs for a range of requirements, be they structural or manufacturing constraints. As designers harness generative to iterate more quickly and create more efficient designs, a wave of unprecedented innovation will be unleashed.

Thanks to sensor data, we support maintenance managers to decrease their costs and increase uptime. For example, we predict the wear of spare parts (we will give user cases on tires and batteries of off-highway vehicles) based on driver behavior, load and weather conditions. This will also support onboard technicians in their failure diagnostics thanks to deep learning and sensor data from CANbus. This information will also offer fleet managers technical remote visualization of their assets, enabling them to make decisions to repair or drive back as if the truck were in front of them, helping them monitor and save costs.

Multi-modal proactive updates, which refer to the information a vehicle proactively provides to its users in multiple forms such as voice, tone and visual updates, are welcomed in passenger cars and commercial vehicles. Users appreciate when their car warns them about heavy rain on their route, or reminds them they are due for an oil change. How do off-highway vehicle users feel about them, though? Would multi-modal proactive updates in the off-highway vehicle make life easier, or would they be distracting? These questions are answered in this presentation through the findings of an online survey and interviews with off-highway machine operators.

Even though agricultural tractors are used for countless work scenarios with a huge variety of implements, state-of-the-art operator systems in tractors are mainly static – they always present a compromise solution. It is often a challenge for drivers to understand the operating logic, the operating procedures and the assignment of control elements to functions. Operating errors and a lack of efficiency are the consequences. We will show a fully functional and field-tested adaptive operator system that bypasses all the aforementioned weaknesses. For the first time ever, an operator system in a tractor adapts to the task.

Today’s highly digitized control environments bringing together conventional interaction paradigms and those of HCI (human-computer interaction). Increasing operation safety, reliability and performance by reducing complexity are some of the main goals in improving serial-based HMI. Based on screening the latest trends and R&D efforts in the market, we identified six topics that are of growing importance for future HMI, particularly in (industrial) applications in this context: assistance, adaptivity, learning, scalability, multimodality and work experience. We applied these to analyze selected HMI concepts seen in the agricultural and construction machinery market lately and will show our findings here.

Preh's platform-based customized design has raised the bar of perceived quality, haptic and optic experience and technological content for tractor HMIs. This journey has just started. Doing 'more with less' in agricultural business will move to the next level with teams of machines working beside each other. Postulating that platoons, autonomous tractors and robots will team up with a leader machine, the leader task pattern will make HMIs different. This presentation will focus on leader machine HMI requirements, elements and innovative content based on customized platform modules.

The presentation will introduce an innovative head-up display (HUD) system with two different projection modes. Both systems feature laser projectors: a multicolor one with a microlens array screen and an ultraviolet one with a luminescent screen. The images coming from the two projectors are focused on the windshield, with a wide viewing area and visible from any cabin position.

The ongoing evolution of mobile machinery and the increase in complexity in terms of functionality and vehicle system design have an impact on the requirements of operator interfaces. Besides the vehicle itself, the environment is coming increasingly into focus. Sensors and cameras in combination with operator assistance systems considerably increase the efficiency and profitability of mobile machinery. Mobile machinery OEMs are faced with less-skilled workers while the market demands higher productivity and efficiency. Today’s operator interfaces will allow entirely new use cases and will shift operator convenience and machine efficiency to a new level.

Synopsis to follow

Not only based on the latest accidents, experience in aviation shows how critical the design of human-machine interfaces is. Using carefully investigated examples from aviation, the presentation will show how wrongly designed user interfaces, especially related to driver assistance systems, may make the operator erroneously rely on the electronic control, potentially leading to dangerous situations. It will then give examples of how driver assistance systems can be integrated into operator-centered design of the machine operation.

By laminating transparent displays in glass, industrial vehicle OEMs are empowered to utilize all the windshields and windows, showing important information and providing functions controlled by touching the glass. The technology enables manufacturers to build safer vehicles and machines that improve ergonomics and user experience for drivers, operators and passengers. Compared with a typical HUD, in-glass displays have the following advantages: the setup is simple because it is integrated seamlessly with the windshields and windows; the images are viewable from all angles inside and outside the vehicles; it works for vertical windshields.

New technology and demand for unique design in heavy vehicles call for new solutions regarding functionality, design and safety in work lighting. Modern technology gives endless possibilities for special design solutions for OEMs. New intelligent lighting solutions like Tyri’s INTELLilight also offer a totally new way of solving common problems related to work lights on heavy vehicles. A system where you can change color temperature, dim the lights and free group/re-group is just one button away. The lighting solution of tomorrow is already here.

Following Fortaco's simulation of dust removal from the cabin interior in transient conditions, this year we will show the results of the experimental study. Transient conditions happen when the operator opens the cabin door in a dusty environment, filling the interior with dust. Traditional means of protection, such as overpressure, sealings and filters, are useless in such situations. Using various measurement and visualization techniques, we will discuss the best strategies, such as air curtain versus fast removal, to protect the operator’s health.

The perception of high-quality sound from a machine depends on the human interface and the information that operators receive from the sound. Operators use acoustical input to judge the operation (speed, load), condition and quality of the machine in addition to visual indicators. Too much of the wrong sounds can lead to communications interference and perceptions of low quality. Not enough of the right sounds can lead to perceptions of low power and unmasking of buzz, squeak and rattle. With a deeper understanding of the cab acoustical environment, sound design practices increase the value of the industrial vehicle.