Feasibility of Reusable Vehicle Modeling:Application to Hybrid Vehicles

Many of today's vehicle modeling tools are good for simulation, but they provide rather limited support for model building and management. Setting up a simulation model requires more than writing down state equations and running them on a computer. The role of a model library is to manage the physics of the system and allow users to share and reuse component models. In this paper, we describe how modern software techniques can be used to support modeling and design activities; the objective is to provide better system models in less time by assembling these system models in a “plug and play” architecture. With the introduction of hybrid electric vehicles, the number of components that can populate a model has increased considerably, and more components translates into more drivetrain configurations. To address these needs, we explain how users can simulate a large number of drivetrain configurations. The proposed approach could be used to establish standards within the automotive modeling community.