Hinsdale Magazine | Technology
FUTURE PROOFING BY RICHARD MORTON
ABOVE & LEFT: ARGONNE LABORATORY'S DYNO-MACHINE TEST CHAMBER
Argonne works to make the future of automotive bright
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ar 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
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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. These test usually last for several hours, of which the throttle of the car must
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 Continued on page 62..
