The SilverStream project is developed to address the challenges associated with new technologies for future urban mobility. In particular, SilverStream will develop and demonstrate a radically new light and affordable vehicle concept (L-category) for the ageing population in congested European cities with scarce parking space.
The project combines both ergonomic concepts conceived for elderly people and advanced automotive technologies for improved driveability and energy efficiency. It is focused on the development of a comprehensive set of technologies covering the whole vehicle, driven by a team of expert in the field of medical and cognitive science domain through a top/down approach, and which will be integrated into a demonstrator running in a realistic test environment.
The vehicle developed within the project will be a fully electric light quadricycle, thus belonging to the L6e category, featuring four independent active corners based on near-wheel technology. This drive train architecture has been selected in order to provide superior driveability in the urban mission, with particular respect to curb climbing and parking manoeuvres as well as improved vehicle stability and braking efficiency.
A specific attention has been be devoted to ergonomics, as this item is crucial for elderly people: a new seat solution, which will be able to rotate thus facilitating the access to the vehicle and, furthermore, an adaptive profile will be provided over the urban mission for improved comfort. The trunk and the rear door will be redesigned thus making available an assisted rear e-lift for the assisted loading and unloading of goods and other bulky items.
An innovative body cluster will offer an easy and direct control of the main functionalities inside the vehicle (cruising and vehicle info, window lift, navigation, phone, etc.). In particular a breakthrough gesture Intelligent Control System will help the driver in operating several functions while driving safely and, most of all, with a much reduced level of cognitive stress. Hence the driver, by means of a simple and gentle hand wave motion, will control the air conditioning system or radio, and use finger click to open sunroof and, in the future, will set other functionalities. This innovative HMI represents a technological revolution with respect to the state-of-the-art systems which are still based on “touch” recognition and it has been selected in order to improve dramatically the ergonomics inside the vehicle.
Finally a Vehicle Management System, based on multi-core microcontroller, will manage the torque distribution across the active corners as well as control the energy flow of the vehicle (e.g. energy recuperation while braking, etc.)
The above mentioned functionalities (e.g. 4WD, e-seat, rear e-lift, HMI based on gesture recognition, VMS) will be enabled by a set of smart systems featuring state-of-the-art microelectronic technologies.
