A Solution for Vehicle Inertia and Road Load Simulation Applied to Motorcycle Dynamometer

A motorcycle dynamometer is a crucial tool for empirically evaluating a two-wheeler's dynamic performance. If the velocity and acceleration achieved on the dynamometer are equal to those obtained on the real road for the same tractive force and braking force, then the motorcycle’s top speed, acceleration behavior, fuel consumption and exhaust gas emissions recorded on the dynamometer are identical to those achieved on real roads under similar driving conditions. This research proposes a new dynamometer configuration that employs both a motor and a generator, with electromagnetic torques controlled alternatively by an acceleration tracking control algorithm to emulating motorcycle mass and road load resistance. A numerical simulation was conducted using Matlab/Simulink to evaluate the proposed dynamometer’s characteristics. The calculated total tractive energies required on the dynamometer for driving cycles such as WMTC, FTP-75, and NEDC were compared to those hypothetically obtained on a real road for the same driving conditions. The results proved that the proposed dynamometer configuration and control algorithm were highly feasible and could be applied to build highly dynamic motorcycle dynamometers with low cost.