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Modeling and Correlation of the Human Body’s Filters/Response to Acceleration During Vehicle Shifting and Transfer to the Laboratory Environment, 03-R9576

Principal Investigators
Michael Kluger
Joe Steiber

Inclusive Dates:  09/01/05 – 12/28/05

Background - Determining the quality of automatic transmission shifting has historically been performed by human calibrations and in-vehicle applications. This methodology has always been affected by road conditions and inconsistencies in driver’s subjective ratings. There has been a need for a more objective rating system that would mimic human assessment through mathematical computations. This system would eventually allow engineers to perform shift quality in a more controlled laboratory environment.

Approach - The main objective of the project was to develop a process that would allow SwRI engineers to quickly instrument a vehicle with accelerometers and acquire vibration data used to assess the quality of the shift needed for the development and correlation of laboratory tools.

Accomplishments - A special laptop-based system was built to interface accelerometers and acquire data during shifting. Additionally, the system included a graphical user interface that allowed the driver to subjectively rate the shift and subsequently execute a series of analytical filtering routines that were post-processed. A series of vehicle acceleration runs were performed, and the code was applied to objectively characterize individual shifts. These data have become part of a database that will be used to develop future laboratory-based transmission shift assessment.

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