IONETIC offers a scalable solution in response to the demands of the UK niche and low-volume vehicle industry, for OEMs that manufacture <20,000 vehicles p.a.
As a dynamic UK start-up specialising in EV battery-pack technology, IONETIC is leveraging its state-of-the-art "Arc" design and production platform to establish the manufacture of highly optimised and cost-effective battery-pack solutions.
For bus operators in the UK, following the purchase of a new bus, a vehicle service-life of 15-20 years is required as part of total cost of ownership return-on-investment. As such, the elimination of need for battery replacement during this service-life would be a game-changer in the current market.
To drive down costs, bus manufacturing is traditionally a low-margin industry which relies on a steady flow of orders to maintain industrial capacity and jobs. The transition to electrification for bus manufacturers is driving growing demand for low-cost battery-packs with a suitable lifetime and installation flexibility that enables acceptable weight and does not limit carriage capacity.
Electrification presents many challenges for a bus manufacturer:
* The cost of an e-bus, compared to a conventional internal combustion bus, is doubled due to the cost of the electrified powertrain.
* Bus powertrain lifetime reduces from 40-years to as little as 7\.
* Battery-pack weight must be <2,500kg for double-decker while achieving at least 150-200 miles of range in all weather conditions.
* Ingress to vehicle cabin usable volume presents height and packaging challenges. This is because, in achieving energy targets, the battery-pack must be installed beneath the floor. This reduces disability access, increases step up into bus, and reduces occupant comfort.
IONETIC's objective is to establish a high-performance battery-pack solution that overcomes the challenges faced by bus manufacturers, from concept to manufacture. With the modular and flexible design of the developed battery design software combined with innovative production techniques, the Arc Platform has the capability to generate a bespoke battery solution for individual customers. This will exploit a common design architecture, a standardised bill of materials, and a standardised manufacturing solution for assembly, testing and delivery.
The Arc platform presents an opportunity for the UK to cement its position as an advanced automotive engineering leader during the transition to Net-Zero by addressing a market failure in the availability of cost-effective battery-packs using UK-developed IP.
Responding to e-bus market needs, Imperial College London joins the project to complete degradation mode analysis work that will extend the battery-pack lifetime.
Titan, Alexander Dennis and TRL will work together to develop and demonstrate an electric steering system for bus and other heavy commercial vehicle applications. An approach will be developed that provides a flexible and cost effective approach to enabling innovative low volume manufacturers to bring autonomous steering features to market quickly and safely.
Advanced safety features will be designed-in from the start and verified through laboratory and proving ground testing with the aim of creating a system that is capable of supporting up to Level 5 autonomy.
A new electric steering system will be designed and manufactured that augments the conventional hydraulic power steering of the demonstrator bus. Taking commands from an automated driver system, this electric steering system will be capable of controlling the steering and providing a level of assistance in case the hydraulic system should fail.
This prototype electric steering system will be fitted to a bus to create a mobile test-bed, enabling the capabilities to be thoroughly tested and demonstrated.
This project follows on from the CAVForth project which saw Stagecoach operate a fleet of five 37 seat Alexander Dennis buses that have been fitted with the CAVStar(r) automated drive system developed by Fusion Processing Ltd.
This new project will see the route extend to Dunfermline bus station, and will also include use of a new model Alexander Dennis electric bus.
The project will commence April 3, meaning a seamless continuation of the service between Ferry Toll Park & Ride and Edinburgh Park Station, and will run to March 2025
The Greater Cambridge region has achieved growth and success on an international scale, but high commuter demand has led to issues of congestion and poor air quality. The Cambridge Autonomous Vehicle strategy details opportunities to use AVs to tackle these problems.
Project Connector will undertake an at-scale trial of on-demand self-driving vehicles with up to 13 electric vehicles providing passenger services that integrate with existing transport services within Cambridge.
Services will operate on two sites where there are identified opportunities: The University of Cambridge's West Cambridge Campus and the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.
Self-driving vehicles will leverage a 5G connected Remote Monitoring and Tele-Operation service to enable a cost-effective deployment that ensures complicated edge cases can be accommodated through temporary override of vehicle automation.
Three electric vehicle models are planned for use, the Kia EV9 and the Mellor Sigma 7 & 8. The fleet will include 2 wheelchair accessible versions ensuring an inclusive service provision. Conigital's lift-and-shift self-driving platform will be integrated with these vehicles to provide existing functionality that will be further enhanced to allow operation with remote operations support.
System validation and verification will be undertaken initially in a simulation environment using a suite of edge cases. Specific research will be undertaken in testing methodologies for L4 vehicles with no-onboard operator and system validation will be completed at the test-track.
A safety case will be prepared by an independent organisation to ensure an objective assessment is undertaken.
The 12-month trial will be undertaken in a phased manner, initially with engineers providing on-board supervision, migrating to trained operators and culminating in a final phase with only remote operators (i.e. no on-board supervision, subject to legislation).
Key to the project is engagement with transport operators: providing a self-driving service run by operators with operator staff and management, ticketing and payment mechanisms.
A key objective of the project is to assess the commercial viability and challenges in operating self-driving passenger services as a transport mode that integrates with the wider transport eco-system.
The inclusion of existing transport operators as the project operator and associated knowledge transfer will offer critical insights between all the project partners and provide an opportunity to continue service operations beyond the project on a commercial basis.
Key external stakeholders will be engaged to ensure relevant insights are shared to help define future strategy and regulation and help accelerate similar deployments elsewhere.
Transport is vital to our economy and way of life. For decades, internal combustion engine vehicles have delivered great economic and social success, but more lately require legislative changes to improve air quality for health.
Driven by an ever-greater knowledge of environmental effects, the UK has now legislated for net zero carbon by 2050 -- and thereby for zero transport emissions across all vehicle applications.
Hydrogen FC vehicles offer the advantages of zero harmful tailpipe emissions with minimal compromise on range, refuelling time and payload relative to petrol, diesel and battery-electric vehicles, for many vehicle applications.
Project ESTHER secures the UK's position at the vanguard of a global hydrogen fuel cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV) market and in the race to zero transport emissions. Centred on the intrinsically advantageous evaporatively cooled fuel cell system from Intelligent Energy (IE), IE, with Alexander Dennis, Changan and Lyra Electronics, will set-up a UK fuel cell production capability to deliver large passenger car, bus and heavy-duty transport zero emissions drivetrain solutions.
A modular fuel cell system will be designed for manufacture, integrated and tested for the transport market. Heavy duty applications in the UK, and passenger car markets in China will subsequently be supplied. Starting with the installation of the pilot manufacturing capability at IE and the related supply chain, fleet trials and manufacturing growth are enabled for ADL's hydrogen powered bus product and Changan's passenger vehicles.
The UK R&D market will also support and grow the fuel cell electric vehicle R&D supply chain.
As an outcome, Changan UK will be established as a centre of excellence for zero emissions R&D to counter a change in the work content for hybridised powertrains and will disseminate FCEV know-how and developmental needs with innovation centres, consultancies and R&D establishments.
For ADL, the option is opened to work toward placing UK fuel cell systems technology in zero emission transport solutions for their hydrogen powered double-deck busses, alongside, or as a replacement for, external sourcing.
"This project will use full size, 12m, single deck buses operating at Level 4 autonomy, providing a pilot bus service, in all weathers, using a 14 mile each way route between Fife and Edinburgh including crossing the Forth Road Bridge.
This exciting and challenging project will provide a world leading demonstration of UK autonomous vehicle capability at a UNESCO heritage site with resultant global interest, and help UK companies introduce AV tech to their world-wide products and services.
The project is led by UK technology company Fusion Processing Ltd and comprises leading UK organisations active in the transport sector:
Fusion Processing Ltd: Autonomous vehicle technology
Alexander Dennis: Vehicles Ltd:
Stagecoach Group plc - Bus Service Operator and Societal Research
Transport Scotland: National transport agency
Napier University: Measurement of wider society viewpoint
Bristol Robotics Laboratory: Vehicle simulation, validation, safety,
and compliance
"AMPLiFII 2 is aimed to take the results of the successfully delivered Amplifii project (in the form of a modular, scalable, flexible battery architecture for deployment on low to medium volume vehicle platforms) and accelerate their integration into vehicle products for JLR, JCB, Ariel and ADL. It will take the manufacturing technology developed during Amplifii and adapt it for implementation by the partners. Further, it will develop additional functionality for the AMPLiFII battery system, including 800V high power charging and discharge, location based BMS control, advanced and highly robust cooling, distributed BMS, use of new 21700 cell format, and cost-down measures.
The project will result in four fully developed management demonstrator vehicles, a pilot production facility at Delta Motorsport, and a production ready BMS system by Potenza and Trackwise."
This project will deliver a truly zero operational emission bus with an optimised hydrogen fuel cell electric range extended powertrain. Significantly reducing the size of the battery to minimise weight and using a low power fuel cell to reduce costs, providing the optimum system with regards, range, shift duration, cost and weight.
Led by Arcola Energy an experienced fuel cell system integrator working in partnership with Alexander Dennis as OEM integrator and route to market, Warwick Manufacturing Group bringing their experience in powertrain development and ITM Power, hydrogen refuelling manufacturer.
Knowledge Transfer Partnership
To improve resource demand forecasting on New Product Development projects utilising a novel approach to predictive modelling.
Williams Hybrid Power (WHP), supported by GKN Land Systems, have developed a hybrid system to regenerate braking energy on city buses utilising their Gyrodrive system with a high speed flywheel originally developed for Le Mans Prototypes KERS technology.
To date this development work has shown the fuel savings in excess of 25% for the bus operators.
In this new project WHP and GKN have joined with Alexander Dennis Limited (ADL), the UK biggest bus manufacturer, to develop a solution that will be optimised for fitment to buses as original equipment at build. This will widen the potential market for the technology, generating genuine cost savings throughout the industry and giving opportunity for increased production and export success. In this project WHP will develop the Gyrodrive technology, GKN will use its manufacturing skills to develop the production systems and ADL will supply its expertise in the manufacture of buses and their knowledge of the customer base. GKN will also look to exploit the technology into its key customer markets such as off highway machines
Artemis Intelligent Power, Alexander Dennis Limited and Lothian Buses will jointly develop and demonstrate a new system based on Artemis’s Digital Displacement® hydraulic technology that will significantly improve the efficiency and reduce the emissions of vehicles such as buses that operate in urban environments. The system will allow more optimal sizing and intelligent control of engine accessories including the cooling fan. It is expected to also recover and store braking energy.
We plan to develop and integrate three complementary novel technologies and demonstrate their application to noise and vibration cancellation. They are: a novel highly responsive, audio bandwidth combined sensor/actuator and associated "local echo canceller" for both sensing the noise and simultaneously cancelling it; novel moulded composite panels with tailorable characteristics for passive noise damping; advanced digital adaptive control algorithms. The resulting "smart panels" have potential for further added-value functionality upgrades. We will build on a previous TSB-funded project which developed the component technologies to proof-of-principle. We will reduce the size, weight and cost of our sensor/actuator and integrate it into panels; demonstrate operation of our local echo canceller; develop and demonstrate a novel real-time adaptive digital control loop; develop the panels to maximise both passive and active noise damping and to facilitate panel jointing; and demonstrate end-user applications.
The growing business opportunity for "smart panels" is driven by two factors: increased awareness of the adverse effects of noise on health (reflected by increasingly stringent legislation and government policy) and the growing desire for a quieter living, working and travelling environment. Applications include buildings, cars (especially the growing number of small luxury vehicles) buses, trains, trams, boats and aircraft. In addition to product sales, IP licensing, design consultancy and firmware / functionality upgrades offer ongoing high-value revenue potential.
The consortium consists of 3 members: BAE Systems Ltd (BAE), Alexander Dennis Ltd (ADL) and University College London (UCL). The goal of this programme is to achieve significant carbon saving though accelerated UK market entry of Hybrid Electric Drive (HED) technology. The competition funding will stimulate £2.5m of new consortium research investment and allow a technology transfer from the US to the UK. This programme will build and develop a UK capability and supply chain for domestic and European markets. The programme will begin with the Experimental Development of a Hybrid drive system on a UK Transit bus platform. The programme then follows a schedule of Applied Research to increase the Technology maturity of 3 emerging technologies, and verify their contribution to carbon savings. Finally, these technologies will be integrated and demonstrated to allow a route to market within the 5-7 year target.