Development and Implementation of a Collaborative Vehicle Configuration Schema in Automotive Engineering

Abstract The design process of road vehicles is a complex endeavor that involves the collaboration of multidisciplinary engineering teams. Each of these teams has its own set of knowledge and tools. As a result, communicating and exchanging design data across these multidisciplinary teams pose significant challenges. Providing a common language for the engineering teams contributes positively to the standardization, efficiency, and robustness of the collaboration within the design process. For this purpose, the aim of this article is to introduce a collaborative vehicle configuration schema (CVeCS). CVeCS acts as a central data model providing a hierarchical parameterization of the vehicle’s subsystems, the infrastructure, with which it is interacting as well as the analyses that have been conducted. To demonstrate the advantages of such a data model, the conceptual design phase of the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle named interurban vehicle (IUV) is considered. The IUV is a research vehicle designed at the German Aerospace Centre.