Improvement of the Sensors Equipment Method for Competitor Analysis

This thesis focuses on improving the sensors equipment method adopted for a vehicle managed by the competitive analysis department. Testing competitor vehicles is strategic for leading companies in the premium segment of the automotive market, as it enables the acquisition of objective data on the performance of main competitors. Such information plays a fundamental role in defining targets and in guiding engineering decisions during product development, objective oriented with increased awareness and precision. The initial phase of the research holds a description of the current state of the art: to analyse and evaluate the actual standard setup requires to perform energy and vehicle dynamics tests. It due to emphasize that this kind of activity set operational challenges because of the "black box" nature of competitors’ vehicle: in particular, the lack of a detailed technical knowledge and the restrictions to physically modify existing components. The main limitations of the traditional approach are analysed in subsequent paragraph, both in terms of accuracy of the results and as for time and complexity required for the test set up. Based on these considerations, several solutions were developed and implemented, aiming to improve the testing equipment method. The innovative approach generated has been validated through careful analysis of the experimental data collected. The outcome shows a significant increase in the number of relevant observations, indicating a substantial improvement in the effectiveness of the methodology compared to the previous ones. Additionally, to ensure a higher level of reliability and consistency of the data, strategic physical parameters were measured using redundant sensors. The goal was achieved through the introduction of new measuring tools and innovative solutions for signals decoding on the vehicle’s CAN networks. To conclude, several considerations are presented regarding the effectiveness of the proposed new sensors equipment procedure, highlighting not only its strengths but also the persisting limitations. Therefore, this study paves the way to possible future developments, with particular attention to the growing synergy between measurement tools and vehicle data decoding systems.