Research

The mission of the Center is to address the multidisciplinary research in the field of Automotive Engineering and Intelligent Transportation Systems, including both private and public transport, from the engineering and design phases to the operational one, through a system engineering approach.

To pursue the abovementioned aims, the Centre will address the following areas that are strictly interconnected to each other:

  • Green Vehicles,
  • Safe & Integrated Mobility,
  • Affordability & Competitiveness,
  • Urban Mobility and Logistics,
  • Sharing Mobility.

The main research areas and research lines are shown in the following figure.

The pillars mentioned represent the challenge research areas that will drive the innovation for the next future in the field of Automotive Engineering and Sustainable Mobility. In particular, the main topics at the base of the pillars are:

  • Green Vehicles
    • New Powertrain and Chassis Technologies for future hybrid/electric vehicle
      • Technologies for energy recovery.
      • New electrified chassis components/subsystems for performance and vehicle efficiency and safety improvements.
      • New technologies for the electrification of powertrain accessories.
    • Powertrain and Vehicle System Integration & Control
      • New generation of ICE’s for hybrid powertrains, including plug-in solutions.
      • New transmission architectures for hybrid powertrains.
      • Control strategies for powertrain and electrified accessories managements; control strategies for chassis active control, control strategies at the vehicle system level.
      • NVH performance depending on hybrid powertrain and vehicle electrification.
      • Alternative and low-carbon fuels, energy carriers and advanced combustion for reduced CO2 footprint.
      • New HMIs for controlling electric and hybrid powertrains.
    • Affordable zero/low emission vehicles
      • Technologies for energy storage (materials, cells, and batteries for EVs).
  • Affordability & Competitiveness
    • Affordable lightweight products and processes
      • New materials for interiors-interior redesign of HV/EV.
      • Reinforced structure materials for vehicle body and chassis structural parts.
      • New composite materials integrating sensors/data transmission.
      • LCA of new composite materials.
      • Affordable processes for lightweight products.
      • New structural concepts to integrate electric and hybrid powertrain components such as battery systems and electric motors.
    • Competitive Automotive innovative cycles
      • Innovative process technologies for new automotive materials and systems.
      • Quick adoption and standardization of new processes.
      • Quality, accuracy, repeatability and reliability of manufacturing processes.
      • Automation of manufacturing processes: Flexible robotics, Virtual/Augmented reality.
      • Smart design, monitoring and control of manufacturing: processes R/AR.
  • Safe & Integrated Mobility
    • Active, Passive and Preventive Safety for the next generation of vehicles
      • Technologies to mitigate the consequences of Vulnerable Road Users in case of impact.
      • More-advanced passenger protection systems including fragile people.
      • Integrated active chassis systems.
      • Vehicle-to-vehicle crash compatibility of new light vehicles.
      • Control systems for both traffic control, integration of the road vehicles with the infrastructure, and advanced systems for the control of public transport services.
    • Enabling SAE high level automated vehicles
      • Optimization and integration of sensors and actuators for automated systems.
      • HMI interaction, development of decision & control algorithms.
      • Algorithms for V2V and V2X interaction.
      • Integration of legacy vehicular communication technologies and upcoming 5G systems, with a focus on V2V interaction.
      • Integration of Mobile Edge Computing solutions in the vehicular network ecosystem for low-latency service provision, and local decision-making and feedback.
      • Integration of personal communication devices (e.g., smartphones) with the vehicle.
      • Testing of driver support systems (collision avoidance, driver inattention and coaching) and level of automation.
      • New vehicle, cockpit and HMI architectures enabled by automated, electric and hybrid driving capabilities.
      • Integration of Active chassis systems with V2X architectures.
      • Handling performance linked to autonomous vehicle design.
    • Sustainable ground-based transport systems
      • Engineering, design and operation of innovative ground-based transport systems.
      • Engineering, design, operation and manufacturing process of ground–based non-self-propelled automated people movers.
      • Design, prototyping and analysis of energy consumption of such innovative systems.
  • Urban Mobility and Logistics
    • Integrated Mobility and Logistics Systems for urban areas leveraging big data gathered from GPS tracking and user-generated mobility data; IT platforms for mobility and logistics systems including decentralized virtual traffic control towers and intelligent fleet management systems.
    • City Logistics and last-mile distribution models with focus on distribution network design of multi-tier storage and consolidation systems; dynamic routing systems with load consolidation and asset sharing.
    • Technologies for last-mile distribution systems and security applications in dense urban areas (e.g., drone-based delivery systems, mobile sensor networks, connected vehicles).
    • Design and validation of business models and public-private financing schemes for mobility and logistics systems and City Logistics networks.
    • Development of models for the assessment of environmental, energy and socio-economic impacts, case-scenario analysis tools, policy-making simulators and decision support systems.
  • Sharing Mobility
    • Monitoring and analysis of current and potential trends.
    • Integration in traffic monitoring systems.
    • EVs Introduction in the urban system: evaluation of innovative strategies for EVs recharge.