Systems Theory and Automatic Control

Systems and Control Seminars for the summer semester 2009

The Automobile of the Future - Options for Efficient Individual Mobility

Speaker

Lino Guzzella

Time and Place

The lecture will be given in building 05, room 205, April 28, at 4 p.m.

Individual mobility is closely linked to the welfare of any society. Not surprisingly, the number of automobiles has been inexorably increasing and is likely to double in the next twenty years. Clearly, this development creates many benefits and economic opportunities, but also many problems, such as air pollution, traffic fa-talities, increased energy consumption and carbon dioxide emission. In this talk the relevance of these problems will be prioritized and some of the most likely technological solutions will be presented. One key point is that in most - if not all - of these approaches automatic control systems will be an enabling factor, without which no true breakthroughs are possible. After these rather general remarks, the following some examples will be pre-sented to show what typical problem setups are to be faced and what methods are to be used to tackle these problems.

   Go to Top

Information about the Speaker

Lino Guzzella has been a full professor at ETH Zurich, Switzerland since 1999. After receiving his mechanical engineering diploma in 1981 and his doctoral de-gree in 1986, both from ETH, he has held several positions in industry and aca-demia. With his research group he focuses on novel approaches in system dynamics and in the control of energy conversion systems. Control-oriented systems mod-eling, dynamic optimization, and feedback control design methods are his main areas of research. He places a particular emphasis on the minimization of fuel consumption and pollutant emission of automotive propulsion systems. In teach-ing, he has been successfully promoting project- and team-based learning ap-proaches. Among the awards he received are the IEEE Control Systems Magazine Out-standing Paper Award, the SAE Arch T. Colwell Merit Award and the Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award, the IMechE Thomas Hawksley Medal and Crompton Lancaster Medal, and the Energy Globe Award. Lino Guzzella has published more than 100 research articles as well as two research textbooks (Modeling and Control of IC Engine Systems, Springer Verlag, 2004, and Vehicle Propulsion Systems, 2nd Ed., Springer Verlag, 2007). He is a consultant to several tier-one automotive companies and holds several patents on automotive control systems.

   Go to Top