This year, no fewer than three candidates won the 8th CTI Young Drive Experts Award at the 15th International CTI Symposium for Automotive Transmissions, HEV and EV Drives. First place overall went to Dr. Marco Denk (research associate at Bayreuth University), second place to Harald Kraus (head of the scientific team E-Mobility and Alternative Drives) and third place to Dr. Markus Bachinger (executive engineer at AVL List GmbH, Graz).

Denk won first place with his doctorate entitled "In Situ Monitoring of IGBT Performance Semiconductor Modules using Real-Time Rectifier Temperature Readings." This involved developing a smart drive switch element for the power electronics that not only activates and deactivates the semiconductors, but for the first time can identify its operating load and age-related performance too – and store both on an EEPROM. To enable this, Denk developed a procedure that can be implemented on an industrial scale to measure the semiconductor’s rectifier temperature. The measuring procedure was successfully implemented in a hybrid automotive transmission’s inverter, and is the first functional, series-production enabled solution for identifying the load status of a non-modified power module.  

Kraus won second place for developing an operation strategy for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles based on previous vehicle and driver data. He presented an intelligent Energy Management Controller that can improve vehicle performance by maintaining the battery’s energy level efficiently. This is claimed to yield fuel savings of up to 11.7 percent, and could also help to achieve future CO2 targets: even high-performance automobiles (>200 kW) could approach 95g/CO2 on average by 2020.

Due to higher version counts and the complexity of electrified drivetrains, together with rising demands in terms of shift quality, the automotive industry is focusing more strongly on model-based solutions. Until now, no generic approaches were known for releasing fixed sample steps for multiple interacting friction elements. Bachinger won third place with his approach for the generic modelling of transmission topologies with multiple coupled friction elements. In addition to general usability, the core of this approach is the release for the discontinuously occurring friction fit. The generic approach also provides the basis for a status and input disturbance monitor that is based on a single monitoring feedback matrix, despite the system’s shift character.