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A New Method to Calculate Instantaneous Vehicle Emissions using OBD Data

Article in SAE Technical Papers · April 2010

DOI: 10.4271/2010-01-1289

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 2010-01-1289

A new method to calculate instantaneous vehicle emissions using OBD

data
Fernando Ortenzi
CTL, Centre for Transport and Logistics, Sapienza University of Rome – Italy

Maria Antonietta Costagliola

Istituto Motori, National Council of Research, Naples, Italy
Copyright © 2010 SAE International

ABSTRACT
The actual type approval procedure of vehicles, based on a fixed driving cycle for all the vehicles (NEDC), is
not representative of their real on-road usage: the driving style and its influence on consumption and emissions
cannot be neglected. The on road impact of vehicles on their real use is not known and it is difficult to measure
(the PEMS are expensive, have big volume and mass and need continuous maintenance); the objective of this
work is to develop a methodology to calculate in real time the energy and environmental impact of spark
ignition vehicles, using the onboard sensors of the vehicle and emissions models to calculate them.

An onboard instrumentation able to communicate with the electronic system of the vehicle (OBD/CAN) was
developed to collect all the sensor data installed on a vehicle: those values are used as input values to the
emissions models of CO2, CO, HC and NOx developed in the present work. The CO2 and CO have been
calculated using a chemical equilibrium combustion model with 6 combustion products, with the equilibrium
temperature used as a calibration constant. HC and NOx, produced during transients, are assumed to be
dependent from the accelerator pedal gradient, but during engine cold start also from the catalyst temperature.

To validate the models, a spark ignition hybrid vehicle, the Honda Civic Hybrid has been tested on a chassis
dynamometer running the three Artemis driving cycles. The emissions have been measured with the CVS (taken
as reference) and with a portable emission analyzer, (Horiba OBS 1300), used for comparison with the models.
The results shows that the values calculated by the models are comparable with those measured by OBS, but for
HC and NOx are better because the OBS gave inaccuracies due to its high minimum resolution.

INTRODUCTION
Although the recent technological improvements in engine, fuel and after-treatment devices, road transport is
still responsible for air pollution in urban area due to increasing number of circulating vehicles and their relative
travelled distances. The actual European type approval procedure for passenger cars and light-duty vehicles
fixes standard limits for exhaust pollutants to be respected during the execution of a normalized driving cycle.

This kind of procedure is not representative of the real on-road use of vehicles, characterized by a more
dynamic speed profile: a fixed driving cycle, equal for all the vehicles penalizes low power-weight ratio
vehicles that see the driving cycle more hard to execute than vehicles with higher ratios and does not take

Page 1 of 18
account for the driving style; the influence of driving style to the emissions in driving the same vehicle is not
negligible [1,2].

In the last years, a lot of on-board pollutant measurements at the exhaust of vehicles was carried out in order to
assess the real emission behaviour: the high costs of portable emissions analyzers (PEMS), their continuous
maintenance and calibrations, the fragility of the components and the weight and the encumbrance do not allow
big acquisition campaigns.

From previous works [3,4] it has been possible to develop a new approach for real time measurement of the
engine and vehicle parameters from OBD connector while, in conjunction with an exhaust analyzer (Horiba
OBS 1300, named OBS in this paper), have been performed on-road acquisition campaigns on conventional
vehicles and hybrids [1,2,4]. In [1,2] different drivers have driven 3 Honda cars (two hybrids and one
conventional) on the same path and big differences in terms of emissions produced have been observed from
driver to driver. This difference is due to how the driver uses the accelerator pedal and in particular to its
variation or the standard deviation. Also the conditions in which the thermal engine produces the highest levels
of emissions have been investigated (cold start, full load and transients) [4] and also the optimal conditions
(steady state) in which there are very low values of NOx, CO and HC produced.

Starting from a previous work [3] in which a instrumentation capable to collect in real time all the sensors data
from the electronic system of vehicles (OBD) was developed, the objective of the present work is to develop a
methodology to calculate the instantaneous values of emissions at the exhaust of spark ignition vehicles by
using emission models that have as input such OBD data.

In literature, due to the fact that the vehicle electronics and its standardization have been developed only in
recent years, the calculation of emissions is based using only the speed value [5], treating the thermal engine as
a “black box” and not knowing all the instantaneous parameters. In this work the characteristic engine
parameters are used to calculate the emissions. With a embedded pc and a software to collect data from the
OBD diagnostic port it is possible to release an instrumentation more compact, economic and that does not
require maintenance able to calculate the energetic and environmental impact of vehicles also in remote. Then it
could be possible to make big acquisition campaigns, to monitor fleets of vehicles in their real use without
modifications of the vehicle (in terms of weight and encumbrance) and with low costs.

This can also be the starting point for a new approach of the type approval procedure of vehicles, based on a
pre-homologation test, substituting it with a constant real time monitoring of the vehicle emissions and for
example, tax calculation on the basis of the real pollution produced.

The present work is organized: a first part in which the onboard instrumentation is reported together with the
improvements respect to that described in [3], then a second part describes the developed emission models. The
models are also calibrated and validated on a chassis dynamometer, comparing the experimental measurements
performed by two different gas analyzers (a PEMS and an analytical one) with the predicted values of model. In
the last part of the paper are reported the conclusions.

THE ONBOARD INSTRUMENTATION

All the European vehicles equipped with a lambda sensor, so all the vehicles from 1993 have an electronic
system to control the fuel injection and then a diagnostic system to read sensor data and to store trouble codes.
In Europe, starting from 2001 (in USA from 1996) with the Euro III standard, all the vehicles have also to
supply in a standardized way, from a standardized connector, a common set of engine parameters so it could be

Page 2 of 18
possible to connect to all the vehicles with a unique hardware interface and with a unique communication
protocol.

The standards of interest to communicate with the electronics of vehicles are [6]:

• SAE J1962; in this standard is defined the shape and the number of pins of the OBD connector that is
located within the cab of every vehicle;
• SAE J1850 (VPW e PWM); standard for the hardware interface generally compliant with American vehicles
(Ford and General Motors); while;
• ISO 9141-2 and SAE14230-4 (KWP2000): are the standard for the interface compliant with European and
Asiatic vehicles;
• ISO 15765-4; is the standard for vehicles equipped with CAN-bus;
• SAE J1979: in this document is reported the communication protocol to connect, using the interfaces to, to
the vehicles and read the engine parameters.

The parameters, collected from the instrumentation, with high frequencies (2-5 Hz) are: vehicle speed, air/fuel
ratio, the intake airflow, rpm, engine load, accelerator pedal position, lambda sensor voltage, catalyst
temperature, Close/Open Loop information, absolute load (volumetric efficiency), intake air pressure, EGR and
ignition advance. There are also some other parameters, with slow temporal variation, collected every 30
seconds: the intake air temperature, the coolant temperature, the ambient temperature and pressure, the tank fuel
level and the battery voltage.

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 Fig. 1 Screenshot of the acquisition software to collect the engine parameters from the OBD connector of the
vehicle.

A pc with an OBD interface and a GPS can store such data with a software [3] as in Fig. 1 in which there is a
screenshot of the acquisition software
oftware with the engine parameters collected on a Honda Civic Hybrid. The
number of available parameters could be different from vehicle to vehicle and it is dependent to the electronic
system installed onboard. Also the acquisition speed is dependent from the protocol adopted and then from the
electronic system installed on the vehicle, but also from the model of the interface used: the can
can-bus, for
example have a bus speed of 500 kb/s and with a CANCAN-USB
USB adapter it is possible to collect all the above data
with a frequency up to 100 Hz, more than sufficient for the present work.

Page 4 of 18
 Fig. 2 The On Board instrumentation

Other characteristics of the onboard instrumentation are (Fig. 2),, the possibility to communicate with a GSM
modem and notify possible trouble codes and to upload automatically all the onboard collected data to a server
using the Wi-Fi communication and the SFTP protocol. The onboard unit is then able to work in automatic
without any control from technicians or operators: it is so possible to make big acquisition campaign with many
vehicles monitored.

THE EMISSION MODELS

Starting by OBD parameters, a set of models was developed in order to calculate the volumetric
volume concentrations
of CO, CO2, NOx and HC. An additional gas transport model allow to calculate mass emissions of each
pollutants emitted at the exhaust of vehicle. In the following,
following, each model will be detailed.

The emissions of modern spark ignition vehicles, equipped with O2 sensors and three way catalysts cannot be
mapped in three-dimensional steady state engine maps because in those conditions (or in Close Loop), with the
exception
ion of the full loads, the emissions produced are very low [13],
[ ], so in this work they are in function of
parameters that varyry rapidly with time: throttle pedal gradients
gradients and air fuel ratio for example that during
transients are responsible of production of CO, NOx and HC.

CO AND CO2
To calculate the CO and CO2 a simple combustion model with the hypothesis of chemical equilibrium is used
[7,8]. The first assumption is that the fu
fuel is an hydrocarbon of the form Cα H β Oγ Nδ and air is 0.79 ⋅ N 2 + 0.21⋅ O2 .
The combustion products are six: CO2 , H 2O, N 2 , O2 , CO, H 2 with the following equilibrium reaction
Page 5 of 18
CO2 + H 2 ↔ CO + H 2 O and CO is produced only for rich mixtures. The input data of this combustion model are,
apart from the fuel characteristics, the air/fuel ratio and the equilibrium temperature of the combustion products.
The first is directly measured from the onboard instrumentation while the second is used as calibration constant
to take into account of the conditions of the catalyst. Such model, if the equilibrium temperature increases,
increases the dissociation of CO2 in CO, vice versa if the temperature decreases; this parameter is for this
model, the temperature of the gas flowing out for the exhaust duct.

Such calibration temperature can be related with the catalyst temperature and lambda sensor voltage:

(
Tcal = T VO2 , TCatalyst )
where

VO2 : lambda sensor voltage; used to know if the engine is running in Open Loop or in Close Loop.

TCatalyst : catalyst temperature.

During the Close Loop condition, the O2 sensor has a voltage output that varies around the value of 0.425 V and
an air/fuel ratio near to stoichiometric, the catalyst efficiency is very high and the CO produced will be mostly
converted in CO2. The calibration temperature, in this condition, is then very low (about 400 K). In Open Loop
condition instead, (with Lambda sensor voltage greater than 0.85 V) and with rich mixtures, there is not enough
oxygen in the catalyst to oxidize the CO and the catalyst efficiency is very low: the calibration temperature is
high (about 1000 K).

The catalyst efficiency is much influenced by its temperature: greater is the temperature and higher is the
efficiency up to a value of 1000-1100 K, where there is dissociation of CO2 in CO due to the high values of gas
temperature; during cold start, in the same way of the other models an exponential term to take account for the
lower efficiency of the catalyst is added.

NOX
While CO is produced for rich mixtures, peaks of NOx are observed for slightly lean values of air/fuel ratios.
(λ), ratio between air/fuel ratio and stoichiometric air/fuel ratio between 1.05 and 1.1): generally a thermal
engine, in steady conditions, works with stoichiometric mixtures at partial loads and rich at full loads, so
without transients there should not be a big production of NOx. Lean mixtures are observed during transients
and particularly those due to the accelerator pedal gradients. The engine ECU, in presence of high accelerator
pedal gradients, is not able to adapt so rapidly the injection timings to maintain the mixture near to the
stoichiometric value.

The NOx model calculates the values in ppm produced as function of the pedal temporal derivative. The catalyst
temperature influences the production of NOx during cold start in which the catalyst efficiency is low and the
relation used for the dependence with the temperature has an exponential form.

The NOx model can then be expressed in the following way:

 dThrottle 
NOx = NOx  , TCatalyst 
 dt 

Page 6 of 18
HC
Also HC have not their peaks in steady conditions, because oxidized almost completely by the catalyst:
transients are the emissive conditions for hydrocarbons and in particular the pedal release is the worst condition
(the cut off), but also full loads, due to the rich mixtures are source of HC that reach to a poor quality
combustion and a low catalyst efficiency. Also with lean mixtures it is possible to produce HC due to a lower
burning speed and then to an incomplete combustion of the fuel injected.

The formula used to calculate the HC is similar to that used for NOx:. At partial loads and regarding the cold
start period is exactly the same: the hydrocarbon are produced during the accelerator pedal gradients (positive
and negative) and when the catalyst temperature is low. As in the CO case the full load is checked with the
Lambda Sensor voltage greater than 0.85 V so the model will have the form:

 dThrottle 
HC = HC  , TCatalyst ,VO2 
 dt 

GAS TRANSPORT
The models developed, using the sensors data installed on the engine, give the pollutants values in proximity of
the engine. To compare them with the values measured form the exhaust analyzers, mounted at the end of the
exhaust duct, but also to have a complete set of model that supply the instantaneous emissions produced (and
not at the exhaust engine valve) a simple gas transport model was used [9]. To model the dilution and mixing
effects along the exhaust duct and calculate the concentrations of each pollutant the manifold is modelled as
composed by a plenum and an equivalent duct.

First of all the following times are defined [9]:

Vex
Tm ( t ) = ⋅ p: “Mixing Time”, representative of the mixing process within the plenum;
V
ex ( t )

Vex
Tt ( t ) = ⋅ (1 − p ) : “Delay time”, representative of the time needed to pass through the duct;
Vex ( t )

Where:

Vex is the total volume of the exhaust system;

V
ex ( t ) is the instantaneous volumetric exhaust flow;

p is the ratio between the plenum volume and the total exhaust volume.

The governing equation for the gas transport is then:

Tm ( t ) ⋅ u
( t ) + u ( t ) = w ( t − Tt ( t ) )

where w è is the volume value at the exhaust valve and u is the value at the end of the exhaust duct.

Page 7 of 18
 Fig. 3 Comparison between the CO [% Vol.] values calculated with the model, at the exhaust valve, with the
model plus gas transport and with the measured values from the Horiba OBS 1300.

The Fig. 3 shows the behaviour of the CO measured with the analytical gas analyzer Horiba MEXA 7200 and
the values calculated at the engine exhaust valve and at the end of the exhaust duct (by using the gas transport
model) on a Honda Civic Hybrid.

The Fig. 3 reports a test composed by two parts at full load in Open Loop condition (446-453 s. and 460-466 s.)
with a central part stoichiometric (453-460 s.) and a final part in cut off (from sec. 466). When the Open Loop
starts, the CO produced in the combustion chamber reach rapidly the 4% and after 3-4 seconds this value is
found at the end of the exhaust duct. The gas transport model is able to follow the CO behaviour; the only part
in the graph where there is a difference between model and measurements is in the last part where there is the
cut off phase. During such phase the exhaust flow is very low and so even if the two concentration values are
quite different, the calculated mass are light different.

MASS CALCULATION
The volume values, calculated above can be then calculated in mass using the intake airflow sensor collected
from the Onboard instrumentation.

Page 8 of 18
 Fig. 4 Comparison between the measured intake airflow from the Onboard instrumentation and the exhaust
flow rate measured with a Pitot tube of Horiba OBS 1300MEXA
MEXA.

This value, even if not measured on the end of the exhaust system, but in the intake manifold of ththe engine, does
not show distortions, differences or delays if compared with a sensor installed at the terminal of the exhaust as
reported in Fig. 4.. The gas and the wave
wave pressure propagating within a internal combustion engine ducts travel
at the sound speed (340 m/s at ambient temperature) and the length of all the engine ducts, about 3-4
3 m, do not
modify the flow profile.

In Fig. 4 the intake airflow and the exhaust flow rate measured from the Pitot tube of an exhaust analyzer, the
Horiba OBS 1300 are compared and the two values are in accordance for all the ranges measured.

To knoww the mass values and then in g/km, in standard temperature and pressure (293.15 K and 101.3 kPa) the
following relations are used:

STP 1 273.15
X Mass ( t ) = X Vol ( t ) ⋅ M X ⋅ ρ STP ⋅ Qex ( t ) ⋅ ⋅
60 ⋅ 22.415 293.15

Where:
STP
X Mass (t ) : instantaneous mass flow rate of the pollutant;

X Vol ( t ) : molar fraction of the pollutant;

MX : atomic weight;

Page 9 of 18
ρ STP : gas density in standard conditions ( 1.205 g/m3);

Qex ( t ) : volumetric flow rate (litres/min).

EXPERIMENTAL TEST
To calibrate and then validate the above models, a series of experimental tests was carried out in emission
laboratory of Istituto Motori – CNR in order to perform pollutant emission measurements of an hybrid vehicle,
the Honda Civic Hybrid.

The choice of Honda Hybrid as test vehicle is made thanks to the big number of sensors installed onboard
useful to build the models: the mass airflow sensor and the wide band Lambda sensor are fundamental for this
work. Also the catalyst temperature sensor, available in that vehicle was useful to know the behaviour of
noxious agents with the temperature.

Table 1 Specifications of the Honda Civic Hybrid tested on the dynamometer

Honda Civic Hybrid 2006

Displacement [cc] 1339

Max thermal engine power [kW] 70@6000 Rpm

Max Electric motor power [kW] 15@2000 Rpm

Weight [kg] 1297

Gear Automatic (CVT)

Consumption [l/100 km] (99/100/CE) 4.6

CO2 [g/km] (99/100/CE) 109

Tier Euro 4

The vehicle is a hybrid parallel vehicle and the its specifications are reported in Table 1; the thermal engine
displacement is 1339 cc with a maximum power of 70 kW at 6000 Rpm and a torque of 123 Nm at 4600 Rpm
with an electrical motor with 15 kW at 2000 Rpm and the maximum torque of 103 Nm between 0 and 1160
Rpm.

This vehicle was positioned on a chassis dynamometer able to simulate the vehicle inertia and road load
resistance. Emissions of CO, HC, NOx and CO2 were measured during the execution of the cold start European
type-approval driving cycle (called NEDC) and during the hot start Common Artemis Driving Cycle (CADC).
This latter sequence was realized in the European Research Project named Artemis (Assessment a Reliability of
Transport Emissions Models and Inventory Systems) [10] and is derived by a large database of real onroad
cycles taking into account several factors like vehicle use, driving style and vehicle characteristics. It is
composed by three driving cycles (Urban, Road and Motorway) each representing a different traffic situation
Page 10 of 18
from congested to fluent. The three sub-cycles,
sub surely more realistic than the NEDC, have power requirements,
speed and transients that better show the high emissive conditions of vehicles and also the advantages of
Hybrids in such conditions over the conventional vvehicles; these cycles [11,12].

Continuous
ous raw pollutants measurements were performed by using a PEMS – Portable Emission Measurement
Systems (Horiba OBS 1300) and an analytical device (Horiba MEXA 7200). The raw exhaust flow measured
by the Pitot tubes of the PEMS was used to calculate mass concentration
concentration of each pollutant.

OBS performs a wet measurement, whereas Horiba MEXA measures gases concentration in a dried stream. The
effect of water presence in the measured gaseous stream is mainly visible on COCO2 concentration traces because
of relatively high values (almost 15 %Vol.).
% ). This aspect allows to calculate the water volume removed by
cooled drain separator by comparing the wet OBS concentration with the dry Horiba MEXA one. This quantity
is then used to correct dry measurement of other pollutants (CO, HC and NOx) and to change them into wet
values comparable with OBS measurements.

Moreover, mean emission factors during each test were measured by diluting exhaust flow with a constant
volume sampling
ampling device (CVS) and collecting a part of this diluted flow in tedlar bags during the whole
duration of driving cycle.

RESULTS
The emissions models have been calibrated using the values measured from Horiba MEXA on Artemis
Motorway driving cycle, validated
ated with the CVS values (taken as reference) on the three driving cycles and
compared with the values measurable from the Horiba OBS.

Fig. 5 Comparison between the CO in g calculated by the model with that measured by the Horiba
MEXA 7200 and that from Horiba OBS 1300 on the Artemis Motorway driving cycle.

Page 11 of 18
In Fig. 5 are shown the values of CO produced in grams calculated by model, measured by the Horiba MEXA
7200 and then by Horiba OBS 1300. Two aspects can be observed in the graph: the first regards the CO
increasing during the full load operating of the engine and the second about the very low emissions during the
Closed Loop condition.

The CO curve was built tuning the chemical equilibrium temperature: for open loop and open loop conditions
are used the following values of temperatures (with a linear dependence with the catalyst temperature):

Thot ( K ) = max (100; Tcat − 360 ) + 273.15 for open loop ( VO2 > 0.85 V)

Thot ( K ) = max ( 530; Tcat + 190 ) + 273.15 for Close loop ( VO2 <= 0.85 V)

To take account for engine cold start condition, an additional value is added:

 T  
2

∆Tcold = 1000 − exp  −10 ⋅  Cat   ⋅ 600

  200  


And the calibration temperature for the chemical equilibrium combustion model have the following form:

Tcal = Thot + ∆Tcold .

The developed model, as can be seen in the graph, is able to intercept the different conditions in which the
engine could work and follows the CO behaviour for all the acquisition.

Also the Horiba OBS have good accuracy in measuring the CO as shown in the same graph.

Table 2 Comparison between the CO values measured from CVS and OBS with those calculated by
model on the three Artemis driving cycles.

CO g/km CVS OBS Model

Artemis Urban 0.021 0.056 0.053

Artemis Rural 0.312 0.275 0.28

Artemis Motorway 0.602 0.55 0.589

The CO measurements in g/km for the three driving cycles are reported in Table 2 and the average error for the
three driving cycles of the OBS and the model with the CVS is 0.043 g/km e 0.025 g/km.

Page 12 of 18
 Table 3 Comparison between the CO2 values measured from CVS and OBS with those calculated by
model on the three Artemis driving cycles.

CO2 g/km CVS OBS Model

Artemis
emis Urban 202.32 208.23 198.06

Artemis
emis Rural 119.75 127.18 123.65

Artemis
emis Motorway 119.38 125.64 122.35

The values for the CO2 produced are reported in Table 3 and the average error for the three cycles with the CVS
is for the OBS about 6.5 g/km while for the model is 3.6 g/km.

1.0012 g

Fig. 6 Comparison between the NOx in g calculated by the model with that measured by the Horiba
MEXA 7200 and that from Horiba OBS 1300 on the Artemis Motorway driving cycle.

In Fig. 6 are reported the NOx behaviours calculated by model, measured by Horiba MEXA and also with OBS
on Artemis Motorway driving cycle. After a first part,
part, about 100 seconds, in which there is a big production of
NOx due to the engine start, the production of NOx becomes very low. The NOx curve was built as sum of the
following terms:

   T − 233.15  
2

exp  −10 ⋅  Cat   ⋅ 5500 → TCat <= 200°C  dThrottle 

NOxCold =   240   NOxTransient = min  20; 0.12 ⋅
20;0.12 

  dt 
0 → TCat > 200°C

Page 13 of 18
The first is the influence of the catalyst temperature and the second are the throttle position gradients. A upper
limit value for the last term was specified to have better accuracy with the experimental data.

The
he OBS, having a zirconia sensor, with a min
minimum resolution too high to measure with good accuracy this
kind of vehicles, makes not negligible errors. The error made is about 10 times the MEXA value: 1.0012 g
against 0.11 g measured with MEXA..

Table 4 Comparison between the NOx

NOx values measured from CVS and OBS with those calculated by
model on the three Artemis driving cycles.

NOx g/km CVS OBS Model

Artemis
emis Urban 0.003 0.017 0.0024

Artemis
emis Rural 0.00049 0.026 0.0019

Artemis
emis Motorway 0.0008 0.035 0.001

The values for the NOx produced are reported in Table 4 and the average error for the three cycles with the CVS
is for the OBS about 0.042 g/km while for the model is 0.001
0. g/km.

Fig. 7 Comparison between the HC in g calculated by the model with that measured by the Horiba MEXA
7200 and that from Horiba OBS 1300 on the Artemis Motorway driving cycle.

Page 14 of 18
In Fig. 7, on the same driving cycle, are reported the HC behaviours of model and measured: not negligible
differences can be observed in the three measurements. The HC model curve was built as sum of the following
terms:

   T − 233.15  
2

exp  −10 ⋅  Cat   ⋅ 500 → TCat <= 270°C  dThrottle 

HCCold =   310   HCTransient = min  20; 

  dt 
0 → TCat > 270°C

The model overestimates the hydrocarbon emissions in the first half of the driving cycle and underestimate in
the second having a final value lower than measured by Horiba MEXA: the model detects the qualitative
behaviour of the HC production but it need some other parameters to be added in the model. The catalyst
temperature and then its efficiency can be added in the model not only during cold start but also in hot
conditions.

The values measured by OBS instead are much lower than those measured by MEXA; the reason is that the
measurement system of OBS is a HNDIR (Heated Non Dispersive Infrared) detector instead of a FID of
MEXA.

Table 5 Comparison between the HC values measured from CVS and OBS with those calculated by
model on the three Artemis driving cycles.

HC g/km CVS OBS Model

Artemis Urban 0.004 0.0019 0.0073

Artemis Rural 0.005 1.21E-05 0.0024

Artemis Motorway 0.003 0.00061 0.00146

The values for the HC produced are reported in Table 5 and the average error for the three cycles with the CVS
is for the OBS about 0.003 g/km while for the model is 0.0025 g/km.

CONCLUSIONS
The energetic –environmental behaviour of vehicles can be calculated using the sensors that vehicles
themselves have installed onboard. In the present work, an instrumentation able to communicate with the
electronic system of vehicles (OBD/CAN) has been used to collect sensors data. With these data, a set of
emission models of CO, CO2, NOx and HC for a spark ignition vehicle have been developed: the CO has been
calculated using a simple chemical equilibrium combustion model with input data the air/fuel ratio and a
calibration temperature used to take account for catalyst efficiency. NOx and HC have been calculated as
function of the derivative of the pedal position and the catalyst temperature to take account of its efficiency.
Such models have been then validated testing a hybrid vehicle (the Honda Civic Hybrid) on a dynamometer
chassis and measuring the emissions with three different methods: two continuous measurements with a
portable analyzer (the Horiba OBS 1300) and an analytical device (the Horiba MEXA 7200) and an average
measurement with the CVS system.

Page 15 of 18
The choice of Honda Hybrid for the test vehicle is made thanks to the big number of sensors installed onboard.
However with European type approval procedures with emissions limits always lower, vehicles with electronic
systems more sophisticated (similar to the Honda Hybrid system) and will be released and such sensors, will be
easily found together within an engine. However a method to calculate the intake airflow in vehicles without
mass airflow sensor was developed in [4] showing good accuracy with experimental data.

The calculated emissions values on the Artemis driving cycles have showed for CO2 and CO comparable values
to the OBS instrumentations, both near to the CVS measurements, while for NOx and HC the models can give
better values; however the new OBS from HORIBA, the OBS 2000 series, has different measurement systems
for these two gases that can give better results [14].

Due to lower weights, volumes and costs, this method has the great advantage to represent a valid tool to make
big on-road experimental campaigns for evaluating the on-road emissions produced by vehicles; moreover, it
could also be a valid tool to get the basis for a new approach for the type approval procedure of vehicles, based
on a continuous monitoring of the emissions produced during the real use instead of a test before homologation
[12].

As future developments, the models can be applied to other kind of vehicles with different electronics on board
together with a procedure that allow to calibrate them the models for each vehicle.

REFERENCES
1. A. Alessandrini, F. Orecchini, F.Ortenzi, F.Villatico Campbell, "Drive-style emission testing on
conventional and hybrid vehicles to measure real road transport emissions", accepted for publication to
European Transport Research Review
2. A. Alessandrini, F. Orecchini, F. Ortenzi, F. Villatico Campbell, “Valutazione dell’influenza dello stile di
guida sulle prestazioni energetiche ed ambientali di veicoli a basso impatto: analisi sperimentale di consumi
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CONTACT INFORMATION
Corresponding author:

Fernando Ortenzi, email: fernando.ortenzi@uniroma1.it

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would acknowledge the Prof. Francesco Filippi, director of CTL and Adriano Alessandrini and also
all the CTL researchers for the received support during all the work.

The author also would acknowledge Maria Vittoria Prati from Istituto Motori of Naples for the kindness during
the test done on the dynamometer of such institute.

DEFINITIONS/ABBREVIATIONS
CAN: Controller Area Network

CO: Carbon Oxide

CO2: Carbon dioxide

CVS: Constant Volume Sampler

ECU: Electronic Control Unit

GPS: Global Positioning System

GSM: Global System for Mobile communication

HC: Hydrocarbons

KWP2000: Keyword Protocol 2000

NEDC: New European Driving Cycle

NOx: Nitric Oxides

OBD: On Board Diagnostic

OBS: On Board System

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 PEMS: Portable Emission Measurement System

PWM: Pulse Width Modulator

SFTP: Secure File Transfer Protocol

VPW: Variable Pulse Width

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