Former EcoCAR Members Join dSPACE Engineering Team

Vincent Sabatini demos dSPACE hardware to Karl Stracke, CEO of Opel / Vauxhall General Motors (GM), and CEO of GM Europe, and David Sandalow, Assistant Secretary for Policy and International Affairs for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

Vincent J. Sabatini, former EcoCAR team leader for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, now works for dSPACE as a member of the General Motors HIL Group. In his current role, Vincent is assigned to General Motors projects. He helps commission new test benches at GM and assists users with dSPACE products.

For two years, Vincent served on the EcoCAR team at Embry-Riddle. During this time, he became very familiar with not only model-based vehicle design at the software level (modeling and simulation), but also with hardware-in-the-loop design, where the physical controllers and electrical signals become important.

“A virtual design can bring a design quite far, but it is a huge step up once real-world hardware is brought into the picture,” said Vincent. “In my position at dSPACE, while I am involved in the models used, most of my time is dedicated to making sure the physical signals that controllers read and write are as accurate as possible, with respect to the signals they represent.”
 

Former EcoCAR team member Kunal Patil is currently completing an 11-month internship at dSPACE, where he is spending much of his time working on dSPACE Automotive Simulation Models (ASM). His work involves real-time modeling of automotive systems, including hybrid/e-drive applications for use in the development and testing of electronic control units (ECUs). He is also involved in developing and applying dSPACE hardware-in-the-loop simulation technology to test processes.

While studying for a M.S. degree at Texas Tech University, Kunal got the opportunity to become involved in EcoCAR. As a former controls lead for his team, he was involved in the entire vehicle development process for over three years. His strong research interest in hybrid vehicles motivated him to pursue a PhD.

“I believe that competition involvement was the key to getting into dSPACE,” Kunal said. “In EcoCAR, I was responsible for developing math-based models, lab-based tests with HIL, and in-vehicle testing. At dSPACE, I am working on a similar V-cycle approach, which incorporates offline model development to HIL testing at the end of development cycle.”
 

Abhijit Bansal, a former EcoCAR team member from The Ohio State University, now works for dSPACE the HIL Engineering Applications Group, helping with automated testing of HILs, model development and onsite commissioning of HIL systems.

As a member of the EcoCAR Controls Team at OSU, Abhijit worked on improvement and validation of the EcoCAR model for the Saturn VUE Vehicle. His tasks involved clutch modeling, battery management, and model integration and validation using HIL simulation.

“Through EcoCAR, I learned how to do model validation using dSPACE tools,” Abhijit said. “I also learned different system modeling techniques, which helps me here at dSPACE in designing new models.”
 

Former West Virginia University EcoCAR team member Zhenhua Zhu joined dSPACE in August 2011 as an HIL Modeling Engineer for the Applications Group. He supports customer applications in automotive simulation and modeling.

Zhenhua was a graduate research assistant at West Virginia University and served on the EcoCAR team as Control Leader from 2008-2011. Through EcoCAR, Zhenhua gained valuable automotive knowledge in hybrid vehicles, powertrains and control systems from both the real engineering world and the virtual environment.

“The hands-on and real-time system programming experience that I gained from EcoCAR helps me support dSPACE customers and their project needs,” said Zhenhua.