Advanced Microsystems for Automotive Applications 2010

Future generations of electric vehicles (EVs) will require a new level of convergence between computer and automotive architectures, with the electric power train being a mechatronic system that includes a multitude of plug and play devices, embedded power and signal processing hardware, software and high level algorithms. This paper discusses the current advances in the computing devices, communication systems and management algorithms embedded in the EV building blocks used for implementing the distributed energy and propulsion architectures required for high efficiency, reduced complexity and safe redundancy.

Vehicle manufacturers recently have demonstrated impressive fuel economy improvements in combustion engines thanks to the adoption of a range of electrical motors. When the benefits of electrical motors are fully leveraged throughout the engine development cycle, they allow a significant gain in fuel economy without compromising performance and comfort. Through engine down sizing, weight reduction, improvement in aerodynamics and on-demand operation (including starter-alternators for stop-start technology) electrical motors have applied a silent (r)evolution on the combustion engine. The electrified combustion engine is fully equipped to hold back the break through of hybrid and plug-in electric vehicles for a significant number of years to come. This paper explains why brushless DC (BLDC) motors are both technically as well as cost wise an ideal solution to implement any type of fan or pump. First the back ground of the fuel savings is analyzed to better understand where the different operating conditions originate from. Furthermore the challenges that these operating conditions impose on sensorless BLDC motor control are being elaborated.

With the advent of the electric car as a new transport model for the twenty-first century, this paper attempts to give an analysis of this technology and justify the need for efficient energetic designs for this kind of vehicles. It is necessary to reach the best compromise of performance with the least waste energy possible. This is the reason why private demand studies based on the type of vehicle and where the vehicle is going to be used are indespensable. In order to be aware of the magnitude of the obtained results, also a comparison of benefits over a conventional diesel drive vehicle, sized under the same constraints, is made. The analysis has been done through ADVISOR (Advanced Vehicle Simulator), a software which vehicles are modelled conceptually in the environment of Matlab / Simulink. This study is a step towards the implementation of a smart management energy system in electric logistic vehicles.

Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) or Full Electric Vehicle (FEV) can be very useful in order to meet fuel economy and to reduce pollutant emissions in transport in particular for use in the urban area. This kind of vehicles needs a medium to large battery stack in order to assure a good range in pure electric with zero emissions (30-40 km for PHEV and 120-150 km for FEV). The global power train efficiency is an important factor that has to be improved for a better utilization of the energy stored into the batteries. The electronic power converter (usually an inverter) in the electrical traction drive is one of the key components in the power train. In this paper a control method for reducing the inverter power losses and, consequently, for improving the efficiency and the motor exploiting has been studied. The proposed control method is a Modified Space Vector Field Oriented Control for an induction motor. Furthermore, a better inverter efficiency allows a size reduction of the electrical drive cooling system.

The big effort spent by researchers towards green vehicles, capable to reduce pollutant emissions and fuel consumption, is directed to the analysis of hybrid electrical vehicles. The design of hybrid vehicles drive train requires a complete system analysis including the control of the energy given from the on board source, the optimization of the electric and electronic devices installed on the vehicle and the design of all the mechanical connections between the different power sources to reach required performances. The aim of this paper is to point out some results obtained from the energetic model and from the experimental tests performed on the plug-in hybrid electrical vehicle (PHEV), realized, in prototypal version, at the Dipartimento di Meccanica of the Politecnico di Milano [1]. In particular the paper focuses the attentions on the benefits achieved with a Start&Stop energy management strategy.

The introduction of additional electrical functionalities will represent a challenge for both the electrical energy and the power balance, which implies the need for good energy efficiency and a low system weight. In particular, safety-critical, power-consuming new systems, e.g. in the area of vehicle dynamics, demand high reliability in the vehicle power supply. The presented concept combines 1) efficient recuperation of the vehicle’s kinetic or potential energy even in conventional, IC-engine driven vehicles, 2) the buffering of power peaks and 3) the power management of particular loads. It is based on a modified voltage-controlled alternator and an appropriate charging strategy for a combination of super capacitors, battery and DC/DC converter allowing the use of very compact components. In addition to the theoretical description and modelling, a dedicated hardware-in-the-loop based test set-up was built in order to validate the approach with experimental data and results.

Introducing electric vehicles (EVs) as personal transport vehicles requires new driver information systems. We anticipate new mobile information systems, assisting drivers on their emission-free, but, due to initial restrictions in battery capacity, range-limited journey. These initial limitations will create an opportunity for new, integrated mobility concepts, triggering a new class of mobile, IP-based car driver/traveller information systems. We propose a system environment, based on a combination of a general mobile user interaction system, aggregating individual mobility offers, assisted by co-modality integration. This could be realized by combining private and public transport, new car rental and car sharing/car pooling concepts.

For the research and development of electric vehicles it is not only important to determine the velocity profile to calculate the energy requirement, but also the car’s position in order to establish a charging infrastructure in convenient locations for both user and utilities. For this purpose, the Department of Automotive Engineering of the Technische Universität Berlin has developed a small competitive autarkic GPS data logging system displaying unique features: It does neither require changes to the car nor a special handling by the driver. The battery of the logger lasts for approx. a week. In this paper, we give a validation of the GPS measurement technique as well as an example for an application of the logger.

CIDAUT Foundation is a Research and Development Centre for Transport and Energy in Spain. One of CIDAUT´s current lines of work is sustainable mobility, involving the electric vehicle and its infrastructure. In order to advance in this direction CIDAUT has designed and manufactured a technological demonstrator consisting on an electric vehicle. This vehicle is been used to test different powertrain configurations, batteries technologies, electronics, dynamics, etc. The main characteristics of this demonstrator are: the use of two independent motors in the rear wheels; its variable dynamic behaviour; exterior rear mirrors replaced by cameras; exterior lights changed for LED; and the possibility to record all the important parameters from the batteries in real time.

Further reduction in CO

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will be a major challenge for the automotive industry in the coming years. One of the biggest challenges will be to achieve the proposed EU CO

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emissions limit of 95 g/km in 2020. This will require a 38% reduction in CO

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emissions, based on the average value of new European registrations in 2008 (154 g/ km CO

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). In addition to combustion engine improvements, vehicle energy management offers a huge potential to reduce CO

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emissions through innovative electronic systems. Starting from a top-down approach, we have developed operating strategies that offer the possibility to optimize the energy usage of the entire system. Energy recuperation is the main element of the operating strategies, and the vehicle systems and components must be adapted accordingly. The energy management strategies described in this paper are based on a “virtual” average 2008 European vehicle. For this vehicle the following driving cycles were investigated in the simulation: New European Driving Cycle (NEDC), Common Artemis Driving Cycle (CADC) and a derivation of the CADC driving cycle. We assumed that combustion engines improvements will reduce CO

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emissions by about 25% in 2020. This paper shows how an appropriate vehicle energy management process can provide the additional CO

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reductions needed to achieve the proposed EU limit of 95 g/km in 2020.

“Clean performance”- the challenge with regard to improved driving performance and at the same time lower fuel consumption goes on. In addition to this lower exhaust limits are set by law. This bears the need for even more advanced engine management systems in future. These challenging targets result in higher requirements to engine management sensors with respect to accuracy, electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) and optimum operation with an increasing variety of applications. The development of a brand-new active engine management sensor generation based on giant magnetoresistance (GMR) has just been finished. The unique features of this new technology are high accuracy (repeatability), fast start-up calibration and high EMC robustness.

The TIFFE project is devoted to the development of an innovative integrated vehicle thermal system to improve the on board thermal management and the energy efficiency. The project main contents are a dual loop air conditioning where one loop transfers the cooling power and one loop rejects the heat, a two-levels temperature heat rejection system to dissipate the high temperature heat (e.g. engine waste heat) and to cool locally the vehicle auxiliary systems, a new generation of compact fluid-to-fluid heat exchangers and use of innovative coolants (e.g. nanofluids): to improve the heat rejection and redesign the heat exchangers. The approach benefits can be summarized in a cost reduction, due to resize and integration of the thermal systems, and fuel economy increase of 15% on real use.

This work proposes a method to quantify the driver-style economy and safety via inertial measurements. It presents a low-cost and vehicle-independent system for the acquisition of the variables related to the dynamics of a bus. Then, it describes an algorithm which calculates the over-consumption of energy with respect to different reference profiles. A second algorithm counts the number of unsafe behaviours, quantifying the safety. Finally, experimental results shows the algorithm applied to real data.

In the following, the main concepts of a road lane model that keeps track of an arbitrary number of lane borders are presented. Information from an existing lane detection device, a gyrosensor, and map data are merged and filtered to create a road model with a desired number of road lines. The model is based on clothoids and continuously provides positions, angles, and curvatures of the border lines of the vehicle’s own lane as well as of several neighboring lanes. Particularly on urban roads, in situations with upcoming turning lanes, or when the lane detection system fails to detect road lines, the model can still provide plausible information. This information significantly simplifies the situation analysis in further algorithms that rely on a lane detection system and require detailed information on current road lanes.

Vision-based driver assistance systems utilizing both colour and nearinfrared (NIR) can significantly reduce the risk of traffic accidents by improving night visibility of the roadway and obstacles. The night vision system described here combines within a single imager wide dynamic range (WDR) technology with sensitivity extended into the NIR, and colour capability. The multiple-slope CMOS pixel covers a dynamic range of more than 120 dB. Adaptive control algorithms ensure detection reliability by maintaining the incremental signal-tonoise ratio (iSNR). Colour sensing is based on a modified colour filter array (CFA) with a 4th channel to capture monochrome information from the imager’s entire sensitivity range including the NIR component of the headlight spectrum that is invisible to the driver. Virtual NIR filter algorithms extract relevant colour information that is then fused to the luminance information, resulting in up to 70% higher sensitivity than conventional colour cameras.

Reliable Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) are intended to assist the driver under various traffic, weather and other environment conditions. The growing traffic requires sensors and systems which handle difficult urban and non-urban scenarios. For such systems new cost-efficient sensor technologies are developed and evaluated in the EU-FP7 project ADOSE (reliable Application-specific Detection of road users with vehicle On-board Sensors, providing the vehicle with a virtual safety belt by addressing complementary safety functions.

More than 8000 pedestrian deaths per year in the European Union alone have prompted research into active pedestrian protection systems for motor vehicles. This paper introduces requirements of a collision avoidance system and a practical realization in the form of an experimental vehicle prototype capable of emergency braking and steering maneuvers. The main foci of the paper are the description of the environmental model, its implementation using approaches from the field of computer graphics and suitable testing methods allowing for the assessment of overall system quality. Finally we present the results obtained in both artificial test scenarios as well as actual real world environments.

In the last 15 years, the In-Vehicle Information System (IVIS) availability in the automotive domain widely increased especially to meet the needs of the community. What is missing in the IVIS literature are studies, indications and developments of IVIS tailored for PTW (Powered Two Wheelers). Within this context, SAFERIDER, an European project founded by DG Information and Society within 7th Framework Programme, aims to enhance comfort and safety level for motorcycle riders by introducing several functionalities, with particular attention on IVIS in the PTW domain that, as a matter of fact, have been renamed OBIS (On-Bike Information System). This paper introduces in the literature a short and effective review of the nowadays functionalities developed on OBIS side, namely, eCall, Telediagnostic Service, Navigation and Route Guidance, Weather Traffic and Black Spot Warning [1].

Since front cameras were firstly deployed in vehicles there has been a movement towards the integration of an increasing number of functions utilising the same camera. While this is obvious with regard to both costs and limited installation space, the integration of several functions into one camera represents both a challenge and an opportunity. The opportunity apart from reduction with respect to costs and space is the exploitation of synergies among different functions which is a crucial prerequisite for realising a more realistic environment model which in turn forms the basis for future functions. These advantages, however, are accompanied by several challenges concerning the functional, testing and integration concept. This article is meant to explain this stress field with respect to these three concepts and points out the neuralgic points.

Perceiving or understanding the environment surrounding a vehicle is a very important step in advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS). The task involves both Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) and Detection and Tracking of Moving Objects (DATMO). In this context, we have developed a generic architecture based on occupancy grid to solve SLAM and DATMO in dynamic outdoor environments. In this paper, we give an overview of this architecture and results obtained in different European projects: PReVENT-ProFusion2, INTERSAFE-2 and Interactive.

The ongoing development of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) requires new prototyping concepts. In this paper the concept vehicle Carai is presented as a generic vehicle with a variety of sensors, computing units, and different HMI components in order to allow the fast implementation and evaluation of different ADAS applications. In addition to the description of the technical components, a software framework is presented which enables fast software prototyping by providing basic data acquisition and processing modules including sophisticated data fusion algorithms. Finally, the usage of the Carai is demonstrated on the example of different ADAS applications.

This paper presents the intermediate results of the intersection reconstruction work performed in the European funded project INTERSAFE-2. It summarizes the current achievements and findings in this topic that were gained in the first half of the project.

At urban intersections, safety of vulnerable road users (VRUs) such as pedestrians and cyclists in connection with heavy goods traffic is a relevant question. In the project INTERSAFE-2, Volvo Technology is currently developing a traffic safety application for heavy goods vehicles in urban intersections that is particularly addressing safety of VRU during right turning manoeuvres. In this paper, an overview of the subsequent steps in the development is given, including an overview of sensor set-up, the communication and map units and the initial development of the traffic safety application.

A high number of accidents in the European countries happens at intersections. The Volkswagen AG is building up a demonstrator for developing intersection safety related driver assistance functions within the project INTERSAFE-2. These functions will be a contribution to make driving in urban intersection scenarios safer. The sensor setup of the demonstrator, the system architecture with its environmental models and the single functions are described in this paper.

The problem of on-board intersection perception and modeling is complex and requires a wide field of view, dense and accurate data acquisition and processing, robust object detection and classification and fast response time. This goal can be achieved by using a large and redundant set of heterogeneous sensors and by fusing their information. Among the on-board sensors the visual sensors have the following main advantages: they are passive, and they provide the highest volume of information. The use of a pair of visual sensors in stereo configuration opens not only the possibility to infer the 3D coordinates for any image point but also the possibility to compute the 3D motion vector for any pixel. The exploitation of the motion information in driving assistance systems requires the estimation of the ego motion. This paper presents the architecture, implementation and use of a powerful on-board 6D visual sensor for intersection driving assistance.

This article proposes an advanced roadside monitoring sub-system for future cooperative intersection infrastructure. The sub-system consists of the camera for road condition monitoring, traffic light controller, Laserscanners, local dynamic maps database and V2I communication module. These components are interfaced to the high level fusion platform which is intended extract information and enable risk assessment if the situation is turning safety critical. The system is part of the European INTERSAFE-2 project which focuses on introducing cooperative traffic safety in intersection environment. Approximately every third of traffic incidences are intersection related. The project is expected emerge technology to influence beneficiary in 80% of the intersection related accidents with injuries and fatalities.

A new electric/electronic (E/E) vehicle architecture is proposed introducing a flexible sensor node (SN) concept. A SN collects signals from distributed sensors, calculates physical quantities out of the raw sensor data and provides the information to all vehicle functions connected to the node. Fusion of signals in the SN renders the E/E-architecture more structured and transparent; redundant assembly of sensors is avoided and more accurate, reliable and broadly available physical sensor information can be provided.

Over the last few years, automotive electronic systems have become a dominant factor in defining the driving experience of modern vehicles. Increasingly the automotive electronic systems need to fulfill functional safety requirements not only in active and passive safety systems, but also in chassis, powertrain and body applications. In this context functional safety is often considered as the part of the overall safety relating to the equipment under control (EUC) and the EUC control system which depends on the correct functioning of the electronic system. The new MPC564xL from Freescale is a controller family optimized for safety relevant applications such as electric power steering, vehicle stability control and driver assistance. It combines an industry leading functional safety architecture with new levels of performance and flexibility.

Wireless Control Area Network (WCAN) is an effort to replace the wiring harness CAN system with wireless communication due to the increasing number of new electronic devices within modern vehicles. However, the WCAN design has not been researched enough in terms of security issues that a conventional wireless network has to face such as eavesdropping, malicious broadcast and Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. This paper proposes a security scheme for WCAN that provides an encryption and authentication mechanism for transmitted data. In this scheme, a shared secret key is adopted to exchange a session symmetric key every time the car owner starts the engine. The session key is selected randomly for every session to avoid the risk of being compromised. Networking nodes will use this session key for encryption and authentication purposes during the session. The security mechanism guarantees the confidentiality and integrity of the network communication from suffering severe attacks such as DoS attacks. Because the intra-vehicle network is composed of sensors and limited processing devices like electronic control units (ECUs), the security scheme must be lightweight in terms of processing.

Linear electromagnetic actuator (LEA) based active suspension has superior controllability and bandwidth, provides shock load isolation between vehicle chassis and wheel due to absence of any mechanical transmission, and therefore has a much great potential in terms of improving ride performance and comfort, vehicle safety, and manoeuvrability. It also has the ability to recover energy that is dissipated in the shock absorber in the passive systems, and results in a much more energy efficient suspension. This paper discusses the issues pertinent to the design, integration and control of a LEA based active vehicle suspension unit, including the choice of linear electromagnetic actuator technologies and actuator topologies, design optimisation, integration with passive components and control strategies for improving riding comfort.

The CORDIC algorithm is a computationally efficient method of calculating trigonometric functions. The algorithm is put to good use in angle measurements systems used extensively in automobiles for measuring throttle and also steering wheel position for stability control applications. This article covers the use of a high performance 32 bit processor to implement this technique and illustrates an application of the algorithm in angle measurement using magnetoresistive sensors. Particularly, this article will cover the basics of the CORDIC algorithm and its implementation and applicability for the application is explained. An introduction to angle measurement using magneto-resistive sensors is given and the requirements of this type of sensor in an automotive application are discussed.

Novel inertial measurement units render possible for the first time the observation of the trajectories of arbitrary and especially hidden objects in vehicle crash tests. These units employ standard microelectro-mechanical system inertial sensors that need a non-recurring comprehensive calibration to meet precision requirements. Inertial measurement units are the complement of today’s photogrammetry and permit the improvement of passive vehicle safety.

The main feature and purpose of the eCall in-vehicle unit is to initiate autonomously an emergency call, to extend it with a data message containing information of current position of the vehicle, its prior-to-crash speed, type of the vehicle, VIN, VRN, number of passengers travelling, and other available information which can be of substantial value to the operator of the Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), allowing the officer responsible for receiving incoming 112 emergency calls despatching paramedic squads in appropriate numbers and suitable equipped. The main purpose of the project is to design a testing methodology and set-up a testing bench for the research and certification of the in-vehicle e-Call system units. The test stand should allow reproduction of precise and pre-programmed testing sequences of conditions, to excite the device-under-test sensors and its signal inputs, and to relate their logged data and observed control outputs to the reference set of values used during simulation.

iSuppli examines the major trends affecting the automotive market over the next decade and assesses the potential impact for the sensor supply chain. Along with a historical perspective of the development of sensor implementation, fresh examples are given for the major domain subsectors—in powertrain management, for safety systems like ESC and in the cabin (body domain) to illustrate the next decade of sensor development in the vehicle.

To address the goal of providing drivers on highways with guaranteed arrival times, we propose a traffic management system that combines virtual slots with semi-autonomous driving to shape traffic and prevent congestion. A possible application of this system to address efficient merging from three to two lanes is outlined here. Finally, the technical requirements for traffic shaping using virtual slots and semi-autonomous driving are presented.

State-of-the-art vehicle navigation systems not only offer the option of calculating the fastest or shortest route between two known locations on a digital road network, they also offer energy optimized routes as an alternative to the driver. For being able to simulate this problem, it is necessary to not only utilize a high-precision vehicle model, but also to use an exact model of the routes which have to be investigated. The environment in which the virtual vehicle is driven has to be a precise model of the real road network. In order to minimize the effort of simulation, it is essential to automate the generation process of the virtual environment. A simulation is developed in which a virtual vehicle can drive along a model of real roads. All available environment information such as speed limits, lane information, presence and position of stop signs, road curvature and inclination can be used in the simulation as if the vehicle would drive along those routes in the real world.

In order to make public transport more reliable and attractive for potential users in terms of performances and competitiveness, public authorities (municipality, mobility planning agency and transport operators, etc.) can act at infrastructural / network level (facilities design, dedicated lanes, priority infrastructures, etc.) and / or at traffic lights level with the management of the priority for public transport vehicles in a mixed context. The TIPS&INFO4BRT project, approved in late 2009 under the ERA-NET scheme, addresses the definition, implementation, tuning and evaluation of two crossrelated sw modules to provide public vehicle with priority and to manage information workflow for road work. These two modules will be tested in a common simulated environment built on the transport network of Livorno (Tuscany) and Aachen (North Rhine-Westphalia).

V2X communication - communication between vehicles (V2V) and between vehicles and infrastructure (V2I) - promises new methods for traffic management by supplying new data and by opening new ways to inform drivers about the current situation on the roads. Currently, V2X cooperative systems are under development, forced by both the industry and by the European Commission which supports the development as a part of its Intelligent Car Initiative. Within this publication, “iTETRIS”, a new system for simulating V2X-based traffic management applications is described which aims on high-quality simulations of large areas. This is achieved by coupling two well-known open source simulators. The sustainability of the project is guaranteed by making the whole also available as an open source tool.

PRE-DRIVE C2X is a project funded within the 7th Framework Programme of the EU to support the development and introduction of cooperative systems. One major part of this work is the creation of a comprehensive tool set of simulation models integrating all fields of expertise involved. The objective is to create, test and apply an integrated simulation tool set that allows to simulate and evaluate the interaction between vehicle traffic, vehicular communication and co-operative applications. Each of these three areas is treated by dedicated models. Additionally the environmental effects are modelled by a separate modelling approach with detailed algorithms for vehicle dynamics and engine behaviour. The process to arrive at such a model combination from user requirements over pre-existing know-how and other significant steps are described as well as the current status of the work.

GuideWeb is a support network for vehicle navigation and guidance. It is constituted by the cooperation of a multitude of autonomous MapSynthesisers located in the vehicles. A MapSynthesiser, being the autonomous constitutional core of GuideWeb, receives over radio communication traffic flow information via information-enhanced maps (called map syntheses) from other GuideWeb participants’ MapSynthesisers. It creates from received map syntheses and the information of its own travel route a new map synthesis, which is then broadcasted. MapSynthesiser provides timely and accurate information on traffic flow, density and trend on how traffic will develop as well as traversability everywhere within a radius of approx. 100 km to a navigation system for driver assistance. MapSynthesiser cooperation is based on short range radio communication e.g. Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) according to IEEE 802.11 standards.

This paper presents a novel approach for road course estimation using a multilayer laser scanner and a digital road map, which is similar to that used for navigation purposes. If the correct position of the host vehicle on the digital map is known, the road course can be predicted. But because of inaccurate GPS measurements this position is not determined satisfyingly. Therefore, the road course is extracted from the digital map and is matched to an occupancy grid which is a representation of a local map. Based on the correct position as the result of this matching, the road course is extracted from the digital map and can be predicted even in great distances where no sensor measurements exist.

Fleet managers more and more want to have a process oriented approach integrated into their fleet management applications. In most cases it is not enough anymore to know that a vehicle passed a trip from location A to B in a certain timeframe with a certain number of transactional activities (such as parcel deliveries etc.). Furthermore process oriented information such as detailed routing information, number of stops at traffic lights, number of left turns (normally time consuming in right lane traffic areas), number of gear changes, time wasted in traffic jams, average speed, max speed, altitude profile of the trip, number of car door openings, CO

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emission, etc. is more and more timely available through modern powerful Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) technologies and is waiting for exploitation through sophisticated analytical and business applications in order to reduce the total cost of ownership for businesses processes with moving assets involved. The article will show how a business case could look like that covers all needs to turn technical information into a business that is able to realize a win-win situation for all parties involved into the mobility process.