Development of a customizable algorithm for an electrical powertrain

The purpose of this thesis is to present a design tool specifically aimed at sizing electric powertrain in the pre-design stage. For this scope, the case study of Meccanica del Sarca (MDS), a specialized company part of the Beretta group that produces stocks and fore ends for rifles, will be covered. The main goal of MDS is therefore to evaluate different AGV solutions to implement in its facilities for technological advancement. The challenges faced by MDS are particularly complex and involve different aspects that need to be taken into account. Considering the peculiarity of the cleanliness and efficiency of different woodworking and finishing shops, there is the need to avoid transporting work-in-process items from building to building since this might affect the quality of the final product. Having a fleet of Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) systems to carry the materials also minimizes the human labor and contamination of the clean zones with moving parts, while incorporating Industry 4.0 and lean manufacturing principles. The AGV system for instance also involves fleet control mechanisms that can highly improve the inbound logistics of the factory, reducing potential delays or errors. In this work, PWT_DESIGNER is presented: an interactive application developed with MATLAB App Designer that allows to rapidly compute high-level minimum requirements in terms of powertrain components based on desired performance. Then, thanks to the previously calculated parameters, it is possible to select the different components on the market providing the basic material for an initial cost analysis on the project. Therefore, it is possible to bridge the gap between early design requirements and practical implementation. The powertrain design tool, thanks to its GUI, offers a streamlined approach for initial vehicle high-level requirement definition, especially for applications where there are no pure performance demands, like in motorsport, where different design criteria should be implemented. However, thanks to the modular approach used, it is sufficient to adapt the correspondent algorithm’s function in scope of the dedicated goal. Currently, it is tailored to low-speed factory applications. With this tool, users can easily explore different design scenarios by playing with the input parameters, helping them identify suitable off-the-shelf components efficiently.