ASSIGNMENT REPORT

ADVANCE VEHICLE TECHNOLOGY

GEAR SHIFT MAP MODIFICATION USING MATLAB SIMULINK

Sujadi Wiranata
1506710903

Mechanical Engineering
Departement of Mechanical Engineering
Engineering Faculty
Universitas Indonesia

2018
 I. Introduction
This course elaborates about how modern vehicles work and what are the advance
technology applied to it in order to increase its efficiency, performance, comfort, and most
of all safety. In this particular report, the students were tasked to modify a sample model
of an automatic transmission (A/T) car within a constrain of its gear shift map. The model
itself and the task are performed in Matlab’s Simulink feature. It was performed to find out
the difference of the modified shift map with the initial form of it.

II. Method
This assignment, as mentioned before, was performed in Matlab-Simulink
software. The model could be found in “Examples” tab. After opening it, a figure as the
one below would appear. The modification will be focused on the ShiftLogic. There we
can modify both the gear upshift and downshift map.

Figure 1 Simulink's A/T Model

After opening the ShiftLogic Box, another diagram would appear as shown below.

Figure 2 ShiftLogic
 To access the table that can be used to modify the gear shift map, the user has to
open the Simulink function below the diagram. Then another diagram would appear as
shown.

Figure 3 Threshold Calculation

Next, the user just has to click either the InterpUp or InterpDown and another
window would appear. In this window, the user then clicks Edit table and breakpoints and
choose either InterpUp or InterpDown to be edited.
III. Data
In this report, the data of the original sample and the modified one will be
compared. The table shown below shows the correlation between throttle percentage and
the gear stage. First, below are the data of the original gear shift alongside the maps of both
upshift and downshift.

Figure 4 InterpDown Original

Figure 5 Downshift Map Original

Figure 6 InterpUp Original

Figure 7 Upshift Map Original

And next, below are the data of the modified gear shift alongside their gear shift maps.

Figure 8 InterpDown Modified

Figure 9 Downshift Map Modified

Figure 10 InterpUp Modified

 Figure 11 Upshift Map Modified

IV. Result
The user can plot the output graph of the whole vehicle system by double-clicking
the PlotResults on the right-end of the system model. By doing so, another window that
contain the plotted data would appear as shown below.

Figure 12 Result Plot Original

 Figure 13 Result Plot Modified

V. Analysis & Conclusion

In this trial, the student modified the vehicle speed limit in each throttle percentage-
gear stage. As shown in the data above, the first thing to be modified was the fourth gear
speed limit in upshift map, since the default value was 1×106 mph for every throttle
percentage. It was the assumed as displayed above to make it more realistic and to provide
better graphical representation. Actually, the value of the speed in the fourth gear with 100
% throttle depends on the top speed of the car itself, the value represented above is just an
assumption. As displayed in the result plot, the main difference lies on the EngineRPM
graph. The modified version has fluctuation after 59.7 mph and after 78.8 mph. The
representation can be seen better at the figure below.

Figure 14 EngineRPM Fluctuations

 This phenomenon probably happened due to the modification applied on the gear
shift map, both in upshift and downshift maps. The modification applied not based on
proper calculation might also triggered these fluctuations. These changes in engine’s rpm
behavior would probably directly affect the vehicle’s performance, especially its fuel
consumption under those fluctuations area. They can also cause jerking or juddering while
driving, because the engine’s rpm is all over the place in those vehicle speed range. These
might also be a form of error due to the student’s inexperience in operating Matlab-
Simulink and modifying a gear shifting system in a vehicle.