DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

HY WIRE CARS

HY WIRE CARS

Abstract:
General Motors (GM) may never actually sell the Hy-wire to the public, but it is certainly a good illustration of various ways cars might evolve in the near future. Instead of an engine, Hy-wire car has a fuel cell stack, which powers an electric motor connected to the wheels. Instead of mechanical and hydraulic linkages, it has a drive by wire system where a computer actually operates the components that move the wheels, activate the brakes and so on, and based on input from an electronic controller. By combining fuel cell and drive by wire technology, the Hy-wire car has opened a new world of chassis architectures and customized bodies for individual expression. The development is a significant step towards a new kind of automobile that is substantially friendlier to the environment and provides consumers positive benefits in driving dynamics, and freedom of individual expression.

do an incredibly simple job. Most of the complex stuff in a car is dedicated to turning wheels, which grip the road to pull the car body and passengers along. The steering system tilts the wheels side to side to turn the car, and brake and acceleration systems control the speed of the wheels. Given that the overall function of a car is so basic (it just needs to provide rotary motion to wheels), it seems a little strange that almost all cars have the same collection of complex devices crammed under the hood and the same general mass of mechanical and hydraulic linkages running throughout. Why do cars necessarily need a steering column, brake and acceleration pedals, a combustion engine, a catalytic convertor and the rest of it? According to many leading automotive engineers, they don't; and more to the point, in the near future, they won't. Most likely, a lot of us will be driving radically different cars within 20 years. And the difference won't just be under the hood -- owning and driving cars will change significantly, too. The Hy-wire (Hydrogen drive-bywire) is a concept car from General Motors originally introduced in January 2002. The car runs on hydrogen fuel cells and uses a drive-by-wire system, meaning that the car is controlled electronically. GM asked school children to name the car, and one of them suggested "Hy-wire". In 2003, General Motors stated that it was confident that it could produce a commercially viable model by 2010.

Keywords:
Hydrogen fuel cells, drive- by- wire, compressed hydrogen, internal combustion, mechanical and hydraulic linkage, PEM, USD.

Introduction:
Cars are immensely complicated machines, but when you get down to it, they

The BMW hydrogen car

The defining characteristic of the Hy-wire (and its conceptual predecessor, the Autonomy) is that it doesn't have either of these two things. Instead of an engine, it has a fuel cell stack, which powers an electric motor connected to the wheels. Instead of mechanical and hydraulic linkages, it has a drive by wire system -- a computer actually operates the components that move the wheels, activate the brakes and so on, and based on input from an electronic controller. This is the same control system employed in modern fighter jets as well as many commercial planes.

Hy-wire Basics:
Two basic elements largely dictate car design today: the internal combustion engine and mechanical and hydraulic linkages. Internal combustion engine requires a lot of additional equipment to function correctly. No matter what else they do with a car, designers always have to make room for this equipment. The same goes for mechanical and hydraulic linkages. The basic idea of this system is that the driver maneuvers the various actuators in the car (the wheels, brakes, etc.) more or less directly, by manipulating driving controls connected to those actuators by shafts, gears and hydraulics. In arrackand-pinion steering system, for example, turning the steering wheel rotates a shaft connected to a pinion gear, which moves a rack gear connected to the car's front wheels. In addition to restricting how the car is built, the linkage concept also dictates how we drive: The steering wheel, pedal and gear-shift system were all designed around the linkage idea. The Hy-wire has wheels, seats and windows like a conventional car, but the similarity pretty much ends there. There is no engine under the hood and no steering wheel or pedals inside.

Illustration of the Autonomys body attachment concept:

The result of these two substitutions is a very different type of car -- and a very different driving experience. There is no steering wheel, there are no pedals and there is no engine compartment. In fact, every piece of equipment that actually moves the car along the road is housed in an 11-inchthick (28 cm) aluminum chassis -- also known as the skateboard -- at the base of the car. Everything above the chassis is dedicated solely to driver control and passenger comfort. This means the driver and passengers don't have to sit behind a mass of machinery. Instead, the Hy-wire has a huge front windshield, which gives

everybody a clear view of the road. The floor of the fiberglass-and-steel passenger compartment can be totally flat, and it's easy to give every seat lots of leg room. Concentrating the bulk of the vehicle in the bottom section of the car also improves safety because it makes the car much less likely to tip over. But the coolest thing about this design is that it lets you remove the entire passenger compartment and replace it with a different one. If you want to switch from a van to a sports car, you don't need an entirely new car; you just need a new body (which is a lot cheaper). The logistics of switching is still unclear -- if the idea catches on, there might be special switching stations where you can keep your different car bodies, or there might be a way for drivers to switch the car bodies themselves in their own garage.

continually recharge a fuel cell by adding chemical fuel -- in this case, hydrogen from an onboard storage tank and oxygen from the atmosphere. The basic idea is to use a catalyst to split a hydrogen molecule (H2) into two H protons (H+, positively charged single hydrogen atoms) and two electrons (e-). Oxygen on the cathode (positively charged) side of the fuel cell draws H+ ions from the anode side through a proton exchange membrane, but blocks the flow of electrons. The electrons (which have a negative charge) are attracted to the protons (which have a positive charge) on the other side of the membrane, but they have to move through the electrical circuit to get there. The moving electrons make up the electrical current that powers the various loads in the circuit, such as motors and the computer system. On the cathode side of the cell, the hydrogen, oxygen and free electrons combine to form water (H2O), the system's only emission product. One fuel cell only puts out a little bit of power, so you need to combine many cells into a stack to get much use out of the process. The fuel-cell stack in the Hy-wire is made up of 200 individual cells connected in series, which collectively provide 94 kilowatts of continuous power and 129 kilowatts at peak power. The compact cell stack (it's about the size of a PC tower) is kept cool by a conventional radiator system that's powered by the fuel cells themselves. This system delivers DC voltage ranging from 125 to 200 volts, depending on the load in the circuit. The motor controller boosts this up to 250 to 380 volts and converts it to AC current to drive the three-phase electric motor that rotates the wheels (this is similar to the system used in conventional electric cars).

Hy-Wire's Hydrogen Power:

In a hydrogen fuel cell, a catalyst breaks hydrogen molecules in the anode into protons and electrons. The protons move through the exchange membrane, toward the oxygen on the cathode side, and the electrons make their way through a wire between the anode and cathode. On the cathode side, the hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water. Many cells are connected in series to move substantial charge through a circuit. The "Hy" in Hy-wire stands for hydrogen, the standard fuel for a fuel cell system. Like batteries, fuel cells have a negatively charged terminal and positively charged terminals that propel electrical charge through a circuit connected to each end. They are also similar to batteries in that they generate electricity from a chemical reaction. But unlike a battery, you can

(700 bars), which would boost the car's fuel capacity to extend the driving range. Ultimately, GM hopes to get the fuel-cell stack, motors and hydrogen-storage tanks small enough that they can reduce the chassis thickness from 11 inches to 6 inches (15 cm). This more compact "skateboard" would allow for even more flexibility in the body design.

Hy-Wire Computer Control:

The electric motor's job is to apply torque to the front wheel axle to spin the two front wheels. The control unit varies the speed of the car by increasing or decreasing the power applied to the motor. When the controller applies maximum power from the fuel-cell stack, the motor's rotor spins at 12,000 revolutions per minute, delivering a torque of 159 pound-feet. A singlestage planetary gear, with a ratio of 8.67:1, steps up the torque to apply a maximum of 1,375 pound-feet to each wheel. That's enough torque to move the 4,200-pound (1,905-kg) car 100 miles per hour (161 kmph) on a level road. Smaller electric motors maneuver the wheels to steer the car, and electrically controlled brake calipers bring the car to a stop. The gaseous hydrogen fuel needed to power this system is stored in three cylindrical tanks, weighing about 165 pounds (75 kilograms) total. The tanks are made of a special carbon composite material with the high structural strength needed to contain high-pressure hydrogen gas. The tanks in the current model hold about 4.5 pounds (2 kg) of hydrogen at about 5,000 pounds per square inch (350 bars). In future models, the Hy-wire engineers hope to increase the pressure threshold to 10,000 pounds per square inch The Hy-wire's "brain" is a central computer housed in the middle of the chassis. It sends electronic signals to the motor control unit to vary the speed, the steering mechanism to maneuver the car, and the braking system to slow the car down. At the chassis level, the computer controls all aspects of driving and power use. But it takes its orders from a higher power -- namely, the driver in the car body. The computer connects to the body's electronics through a single universal docking port. This central port works the same basic way as a USB port on a personal computer: It transmits a constant stream of electronic command signals from the car controller to the central computer, as well as feedback signals from the computer to the controller. Additionally, it provides the electric power needed to operate all of the body's onboard electronics. Ten physical linkages lock the body to the chassis structure. The driver's control unit, dubbed the X-drive, is a lot closer to a video game controller than a conventional steering wheel and pedal arrangement. The controller has two ergonomic grips, positioned to the left and right of a small LCD monitor. To steer the car, you glide the grips up and down lightly -- you

don't have to keep rotating a wheel to turn, you just have to hold the grip in the turning position. To accelerate, you turn either grip, in the same way you would turn the throttle on a motorcycle; and to brake, you squeeze either grip.

Since it doesn't directly drive any part of the car, the X-drive could really go anywhere in the passenger compartment. In the current Hy-wire sedan model, the Xdrive swings around to either of the front two seats, so you can switch drivers without even getting up. It's also easy to adjust the X-drive up or down to improve driver comfort, or to move it out of the way completely when you're not driving.

GM's diagram of the Autonomy design Electronic motion sensors, similar to the ones in high-end computer joysticks, translate this motion into a digital signal the central computer can recognize. Buttons on the controller let you switch easily from neutral to drive to reverse, and a starter button turns the car on. Since absolutely everything is hand-controlled, you can do whatever you want with your feet (imagine sticking them in a massager during the drive to and from work every day). The 5.8-inch (14.7-cm) color monitor in the center of the controller displays all the stuff you'd normally find on the dashboard (speed, mileage, fuel level). It also gives you rear-view images from video cameras on the sides and back of the car, in place of conventional mirrors. A second monitor, on a console beside the driver, shows you stereo, climate control and navigation information.

One of the coolest things about the drive-by-wire system is that you can finetune vehicle handling without changing anything in the car's mechanical components -- all it takes to adjust the steering, accelerator or brake sensitivity is some new computer software. In future drive-by-wire vehicles, you will most likely be able to configure the controls exactly to your liking by pressing a few buttons, just like you might adjust the seat position in a car today. It would also be possible in this sort of system to store distinct control preferences for each driver in the family. The big concern with drive-by-wire vehicles is safety. Since there is no physical connection between the driver and the car's mechanical elements, an electrical failure would mean total loss of control. In order to make this sort of system viable in the real world, drive-by-wire cars will need back-up power supplies and redundant electronic linkages. With adequate safety measures like this, there's no reason why drive-by-wire

cars would be any more dangerous than conventional cars. In fact, a lot of designers think they'll be much safer, because the central computer will be able to monitor driver input. Another problem is adding adequate crash protection to the car. The other major hurdle for this type of car is figuring out energy-efficient methods for producing, transporting and storing hydrogen for the onboard fuelcell stacks. With the current state of technology, actually producing the hydrogen fuel can generate about as much pollution as using gasoline engines, and storage and distribution systems. If the Hy-wire team doesn't meet this goal, GM and other automakers are definitely planning to move beyond the conventional car sometime soon, toward a computerized, environmentally friendly alternative. In all likelihood, life on the highway will see some major changes within the next few decades.

unburnt products are not produced. Hence these cars are highly eco-friendly. 3. High stability - As all the technical elements have been nicely blended into the chassis, most of the power train load has been evenly distributed between the front and rear of the chassis. This provides a low center of gravity, giving the architecture both a high stability and driving dynamics potential. This contributes to the overall safety of the vehicle, by enabling superior handling, while resisting rollover forces, with the tallest body attached. 4. Highly spacious - As there are no linkages and engine lot of legroom space is available for the passengers. 5. Driver friendly - As the X-drive does not have any physical linkages with the steering controller, it can be taken to anywhere inside the car. Moreover as everything that drives the car is housed in the chassis, the driver does not have to sit behind a mass of machinery. This gives the driver a clear view of the road and thus increases the drivability. 6. Freedom of individual expression - As the chassis would be common for most the Hy-wire vehicles, one can easily remove the entire passenger compartment and replace it with a different one. This leads to the freedom of individual expression. For example if one wants to switch from a van to a sports car, he does not need an entirely new car; he only needs a new body (which would be a lot cheaper).

Advantages:
1. Fuel efficient - Since a fuel cell propulsion system is about twice as efficient as an internal combustion engine, a fuel cell vehicle could provide twice the fuel efficiency of a comparably sized conventional vehicle, and an optimized fuel cell vehicle like Hy-wire would be even more-efficient. 2. Environment friendly - Since the reaction through which the power is generated is 2H2+O2=>2H2O the only biproduct formed is water, which is a nonpollutant. Since there is no burning or other oxidation process in the releasing of energy harmful components like nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, carbon oxides and other

Disadvantages:
1. Low safety - The big concern with drive-

by-wire vehicles is safety. Since there is no physical connection between the driver and cars mechanical elements, an electrical failure would mean total loss of control. In order to make this sort of system viable in the real world, drive-by-wire cars will need back- up power supply and redundant electronic linkages. 2. Storage and transportation of hydrogen fuels - The other major hurdle for this type of car is figuring out energyefficient method for producing, transporting and storing hydrogen for the on board fuel cell stack. With the current state of technology, actually the production of the hydrogen fuel can generate about as much pollution as using gasoline engines. 3. Pricing - With the current status of development, manufacturing of the Hy-wire cars on a mass scale would not at all be economical. According to the present accounts, the cost for manufacturing even a single Hy-wire car would be about 1 to 2 crores.

from the gas. Burns sees a world where GM overcomes those obstacles and your car becomes part of your energy solution and not the problem. Let us imagine a world in which you could come home at night and pull your hydrogen fuel cell vehicle into your garage. The first thing you do is connect it to some compressed hydrogen tanks that are also in your garage and you put hydrogen into your vehicle. You are refueling at home, he said. At the end of the day, if you have some leftover hydrogen in your tank, you could also use it to power your home.

Conclusion:
The Hy-wire concept has so profoundly brought about changes in the automotive industry that GM and other auto makers are planning to move beyond the conventional car, towards a computerized environment friendly alternative. They are actually planning to launch such a vehicle for the public usage by the year 2020, hoping that they can overcome all the drawbacks faced by the Hy-wire car. Anyway, in all likelihood life on the highway will see some major changes within the next few decades.

Future

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Hy

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cars:

Looking in to the future, Burns says he thinks fuel cells offer a promising alternative, but he recognizes that they need to be compelling, affordable, and profitable. One area GM is tackling is hydrogen storage. GM partnered with Quantum Technologies to develop a prototype tank that will give you a driving range of up to 300 miles before you have to refuel. Burns says GM is looking into other ways it can store compressed hydrogen. Burns says you could distribute the gasoline the same way you do today, but it would go through a reformer at the pump, creating hydrogen

References:
King, Ralph (October 1, 2003). "GM'S Race to the Future". Chernoff, Adrian. "The 2003 Hywire Concept Car". Chernoff, Adrian. "The CARousel Concept Car". 2004

Harris, Tom. "How Stuff Works: How GM's Hy-wire Works".