THE CONCEPT OF A HIGH PERFORMANCE ALL-ROUND ENERGY EFFICIENT MECHATRONICALLY-CONTROLLED TRI-MODE SUPERCAR

Abstract

Automotive designers' long-term ambition of combining high performance and excellent liquid and gas fuel economy in the same automotive vehicle, seems to be on the verge of fruition by Cracow University of Technology's Automotive Mechatronics Research-and-Development (R&D) Team with their revolutionary concept of new all-round energy efficient tri-mode supercars (advanced ultralight hybrids). This all-round, energy efficient, tri-mode supercar concept had been conceived shortly before October 1993 when the US President Bill Clinton's Clean Car Initiative launched a commitment by America's Big Three automotive manufacturers in Detroit that are to be assisted by America's national weapons laboratories in a 10-year program to develop environmentally-friendly supercars. Reporting this, the New York Times named President Clinton's teenage dream car as a 1952 Buick "Kaiser Henry J" gas guzzler. The development of the tri-mode supercars at Cracow University of Technology began in the early 1990s on a very much restricted budget, compared with similar projects in other countries, with emphasis on lengthening the operating distance and enhancing the image of them. Longer running distance will be achieved by designing an energy-saving full-time Four-Wheel Driveable (4WD) propulsion, Four-Wheel Brakeable (4WB) dispulsion, Four-Wheel Absorbable (4WA) suspension, Four-Wheel Steerable (4WS) conversion and ultralight chassis and body with an aerodynamic drag of around 0.2, as well as the use of high-performance unconventional combustion engines, modern electronically-controlled electromechanical/ mechanoelectrical Steer-, Autodrive- and Autoabsorbable Wheels ( SA 2 W ) with the AC-AC, AC-DC-AC and/or DC-AC/AC-DC macroelectronic converter commutator (macrocommutator) wheel-hub motors/generators and high-density mechanical energy-storing high-speed Autodrive- and Autoabsorbable Flywheel ( A 2 F ) with the brushless AC-AC, AC-DC-AC and/or DC-AC/AC-DC macrocommutator twin composite-flywheel-hub motors/generators and chemical energy-storing advanced chemoelectrical storage battery. Called the Poly-Supercar (or Polytechnic all-round energy efficient tri-mode supercar), i.e. the advanced ultralight hybrid, it will be the product of four year's R&D to design an experimental four-seat supercar of advanced specification, performance and economy, and with functions which include lane keeping, adaptive cruise control, traffic sign recognition, obstacle detection, collision avoidance, blind spot detection, and day/night vision enhancement.