16 June 2008
‘With this project we needed to plot out the full range of performance, but had only a tight time window to do all the work,’ Jonathan Bremner of Brighton based EMX, said.EMX developed and tested the motor-generator for Lotus Engineering’s EVE (Efficient, Viable, Environmental) Hybrid. This is a technology demonstrator that is showcasing many of the medium term solutions that are designed to reduce vehicle emissions.Bremner explained that the mapping was essential, but could not be done in-house. ‘We are a design house, so tend to sub-contract testing to other organisations,’ he said. EMX worked with a test house to design a simple yet effective test rig. Its engineers specified a TorqSense torque sensor from Sensor Technology, claiming they could easily design a rig around it.Bremner said fitting the transducer was normally very time consuming. ‘But TorqSense is different; as it is a non-contact measurement sensor it monitors the sensor by use of a radio frequency (RF) link. It can be set up in moments, leaving us to concentrate on the analytical work in hand,’ Bremner said.TorqSense’s digital outputs can be fed directly into a computer, where calculations are performed automatically. It is mechanically simple with its sensors fixed to the shaft and a rotating RF antenna used to allow non-contact coupling with its digital electronics offering immunity from magnetic fields. The EVE Hybrid programme is focussed on establishing the processes for integrating hybrid technology with minimal development time and cost.Engineers from Lotus and its parent company Proton have produced the EVE Hybrid demonstrator, based on a Proton Gen.2 compact midsize car with a 1.6l gasoline engine. This currently showcases a 'micro-hybrid' start-stop system, a full parallel hybrid drive and Continuously Variable Transmission.
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