Modelling and Simulation of an Electric Truck for public lighting maintenance

The thesis project is developed in collaboration with the INSIA, Instituto Universitario de Investigacion de Automovil, which belongs to the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), through an agreement established with an Erasmus+ program for thesis preparation. The study refers to the European project SOLUTIONSplus, which brings together highly committed cities, industry, research, implementing organizations, and finance partners and establishes a global platform for shared, public, and commercial e-mobility solutions to kick start the transition towards low-carbon urban mobility. The project aims to boost the electrification of urban mobility in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This paper is part of a technical consultancy for a case study of the conversion of a Diesel Truck to an electric version, for the technical team of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Republic (UDELAR, Montevideo). The vehicle is an Iveco Daily 70C17 HD equipped with a crane with a basket to carry out lighting maintenance tasks and it belongs to the Public Lighting Technical Unit of the Municipality of Montevideo (UTAP). Two models of the same electric vehicle will be developed using AVL Cruise M and MATLAB/Simulink, in the second case, adapting the models of the GRPE of the United Nations. In such a manner, it will be possible to compare and validate the performances through the simulations of the two models of the electric version of the vehicle to have a possible range of values as an outcome and, consequently, a proper design of the electric part (battery, motor, aerial platform). An electrified version of the truck could be very useful to reduce the impact both in terms of noise and pollutant emissions in the urban area since it follows a standard operation cycle that does not require covering long distances during the working day. It is also interesting to have the possibility to compare the two versions of the same vehicle in terms of costs and energy consumption.