Volvo enhances cruise control
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By David Wilcox
VOLVO IS THE latest truck manufacturer to add a forwardlooking function to its trucks’ cruise control system, which is designed to conserve fuel.
Volvo’s ‘I-See’ follows hot on the heels of Scania’s Active Prediction and Mercedes’ Predictive Powertrain Control. All three systems aim to cut fuel consumption when cruise control is being used by making the most of a truck’s kinetic energy on gradients. That means accelerating at the start of uphill gradients to reduce the downward gearshifts, cutting power just before the crest of the hill to allow the truck’s momentum to carry it over the top, and then allowing the truck to freewheel downhill.
I-See, available next year, differs from the Scania and Mercedes systems in one crucial respect: it does not use three-dimensional mapping to ‘see’ the terrain ahead. Instead, I-See uses the gradient sensor that is part of the I-Roll function of Volvo’s I-Shift automated gearbox. When a truck encounters a hill for the first time, the I-See’s electronic brain records and stores the rate of gradient change, along with the location of the hill, as determined by GPS. Next time the truck approaches the same hill, this data is used to manage the truck’s control strategy, provided cruise control is used.
Volvo claims fuel savings of around 1,000 litres a year for a typical articulated truck in “normal operation” covering 140,000km annually – just over 2% – but reckons savings of up to 5% are possible in undulating terrain.