Inside research / Issue 9

Active safety at Politecnico di Milano

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At La.S.T. we test the vehicles’ components fundamental for safety

Did you know that the world’s leading car manufacturers test their new vehicles at the Politecnico?

In fact, one of the sections of La.S.T., Laboratory for safety of transport systems, deals with improving the active safety of vehicles – not only cars, but also motorcycles, bicycles and aircraft. To test the driveability and stability of the vehicles, the laboratory measures, even at very high speeds, the various components and sub-assemblies: from inertial properties, to the limits of wheel grip and traction and braking systems. 

On the left, the Shell Eco-marathon competition in the Urban Concept battery electric class vehicle. On the right, the GreenFun prototype, that has an extensive use of composite and lightweight materials, 4WD electric powertrain and 4 measuring wheels that are able to measure the forces acting between the pneumatic tires and the road.

Some of these systems are based on the patents owned by the Politecnico, such as instrumented wheels, which evaluate in real time the forces exchanged between the tyre and the road. Due to this characteristic, the wheels are used to improve performance in motorcycle competitions.

The RuotaVia rig is composed by a horizontal axis steel drum, providing a running contact surface for wheels. An asynchronous motor and vectorial inverter drives the drum up to 400 km/h

The active safety section of LaST also helped achieve a world record: in 2011, the Shell Eco Marathon team designed and built at the Politecnico a three-wheeled carbon vehicle that travelled 688 miles with one kilowatt hour, thus setting the world record in consumption for a solar vehicle.

A new Instrumented Steering Wheel (ISW), useful to conceive future controls for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems or Automated Vehicles.
On the left, the Shell Eco-marathon competition in the Urban Concept battery electric class vehicle. On the right, the GreenFun prototype, that has an extensive use of composite and lightweight materials, 4WD electric powertrain and 4 measuring wheels that are able to measure the forces acting between the pneumatic tires and the road.
The InTensino System is based on a method for the measurement of the mass properties, namely mass, centre of mass and inertia tensor. The system, developed and patented at the Politecnico di Milano, is the multi-bar pendulum shown in the picture.

All the laboratory activities are developed in collaboration with the students; in the video, we hear all about them from Gianpiero Mastinu, professor of Ground Vehicle Engineering, and Massimiliano Gobbi, professor of Vehicle Design (Optimal Design). 

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