A computer program that learns how to save fuel

Charge!

FROM avoiding jaywalkers to emergency braking to eventually, perhaps, chauffeuring the vehicle itself, it is clear that artificial intelligence (AI) will be an important part of the cars of the future. But it is not only the driving of them that will benefit. AI will also permit such cars to use energy more sparingly.

Cars have long had computerised engine-management that responds on the fly to changes in driving conditions. The introduction of electric power has, however, complicated matters. Hybrids, which have both a petrol engine and an electric motor run by a battery that is recharged by capturing kinetic energy as the vehicle slows or brakes, need more management than does a petrol engine alone. Things get even harder with plug-in hybrids, which can be recharged from the mains and have a longer electric-only range.

This is where AI could help, reckon Xuewei Qi, Matthew Barth and their colleagues at the University of California, Riverside. They are developing a system of energy management which uses a piece of AI that can learn from past experience.

Their algorithm works by breaking the trip down…Continue reading
Source: Economist