Women on the front line of automotive research

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05-08-2023, 11:13 AM

YOKOHAMA, Japan – The Nissan Research Center (NRC) in Japan is a center of innovation that attracts global talent. Its mission: to create new values that contribute to the mobility society of the future. In this special report, we present three NRC employees and their insights into working on the front lines of Nissan R&D. Dr. Vitchuda Lertphokanont is engaged in die-less forming technology and tool materials. Fang Fang is working on surrounding-environment recognition for autonomous driving. And Maki Hoshino is helping advance electric vehicles, including work on the e-Bio Fuel-Cell – a next-generation fuel-cell system that uses bioethanol as fuel.DR. VITCHUDA LERTPHOKANONT Creating New Die-Less Methods to Expand Forming Options – Automotive Manufacturing Engineering Research with Dr. Vitchuda Lertphokanont ProfileDr. Vitchuda Lertphokanont graduated in automotive design and manufacturing engineering from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand in 2010. She completed her doctorate in engineering design at the Graduate School of Science and Technology at the Kyoto Institute of Technology in 2014 and joined the Nissan Research Center. There she is engaged in the research and development of die-less forming technology and tool materials.Current Project – New Techniques for Innovative Part Forming There is a growing need for automobiles among densely populated urban populations around the world. At the same time, customers are making increasingly diverse demands of carmakers regarding what they want in a vehicle. Purchasers of luxury brands like Infiniti are particularly demanding, and manufacturers must prepare a full range of options to satisfy them.Using mass-production factory methods to make small lots of custom parts is an expensive proposition, though, making it hard to satisfy all customer demands. Vitchuda Lertphokanont, a researcher from Thailand, came to Japan to explore ways to develop new production methods better suited to small lots."In the automotive industry, in order to create a hood or panel for the car, we use a die," said Lertphokanont. "But it's very expensive to create a die. So now we're developing die-less forming – a technology like 3D printing – to eliminate the die. These new tools use 3D data to form the shapes that we want at a much lower cost, and we can put them to work in Nissan's existing factories right away."Experience of a Lifetime: An Eye-Opening Internship in Japan Lertphokanont showed an interest in cars as a high school student and decided to study automotive design and manufacturing engineering when she went on to university in Bangkok. As graduation approached, though, she found herself facing a choice."I had two options in mind during my studies: Japan and Germany, both global leaders in automotive high technology," said Lertphokanont. "In my third year at university, I had the chance to come to Japan for a corporate internship. I found much to appreciate about Japan — not only the technology but also the life and the people, who are very polite."After advancing to the graduate program at a university in Kyoto, Lertphokanont dedicated herself to studying automotive production technology. Great change was in the air for the manufacturing industry: Germany was advancing its "Industry 4.0" strategy to computerize manufacturing and slash costs drastically, and 3D printing promised to revolutionize the way people made objects. It was then that she encountered the new, die-less manufacturing approach."Once die-less forming lets us create the forms we want at a low cost, it will open up a whole new way to manufacture cars," said Lertphokanont. "I'm fascinated by the idea that one day we'll be able to build truly one-of-a-kind vehicles, creating complex forms that can't be pressed with a die."Hands-on Learning: Pursuing Individual Excellence as Part of a Team Introducing these new manufacturing technologies into mass production will require an ability to match current production line speeds. Here one key challenge is the friction that naturally arises during the machining phase."To increase the speed of the forming process, we have to improve the lubricant in order to reduce friction," said Lertphokanont. "If we can do this, it also lets us increase the lifespan of the machinery."When she worked as an intern for Nissan while in graduate school, Lertphokanont took part in joint research aimed at reducing machinery friction, and this work continues today.After earning her degree, she made the move from the academic setting to the corporate research field. At Nissan, she learned the importance of working as part of a team."I'd only just graduated, and as a newcomer to Nissan I didn't have much confidence," said Lertphokanont. "Also, unlike in a school setting, in a company there are clearly defined and scheduled targets to meet, presenting many challenges to overcome along the way. Learning the Japanese language was another very important task before me. But the team members provide very good support for my work; they're very kind. And I get to communicate with people doing research in different areas, which is stimulating. It's a way to develop as a researcher myself."Dreams for the Future: An Eye on the Future of Automaking "Infiniti is a luxury brand, with very interesting, beautiful designs," said Lertphokanont. "One challenge for me is to create those beautiful forms, that surface appearance, with new technologies. I'm limited by the materials we have now, though."Infiniti Q60 Embed this image on a website using the embed code here.Infiniti QX30 Embed this image on a website using the embed code here.She is working to overcome those limitations by examining new materials that may be applicable to the processes she works with."Now we're using CNC machines to create small prototypes," said Lertphokanont. "In the future, I hope to put robots to work. The more we can digitize and automate the manufacturing process, the greater reductions we can achieve in production costs. We'll also have new possibilities in customization when we can ask what the customer wants to see and re-create that with 3D data."A Note to Prospective Researchers "Working here gives you a chance to experience many things — to learn about everything from artificial intelligence and environmental technology to the manufacturing techniques I'm working on," said Lertphokanont. "The fewer limits you place on your interests and fields of research, the more room you have to take on all sorts of new challenges. I really feel that this is a place where you can realize your dreams."Based on an interview carried out in June 2016.FANG FANG A Collision-Free Automotive Society Through Autonomous Driving – Autonomous driving AI research with Fang FangProfileFang Fang graduated in mechanical engineering from Dalian Nationalities University in China in 2008. She completed her master's degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Tokyo's School of Engineering in 2012. The same year, she joined the Nissan Research Center where she is engaged in the research and development of surrounding-environment recognition for autonomous driving.Reasons for Choosing Nissan Research Center? In Pursuit of an Ideal – A Collision-Free Society It was Fang's desire to work overseas that first brought her from China's Heilongjiang Province to Japan. She joined Nissan after graduate school, familiar with the company as one admired even in China for its success as a global automaker. Her decision was also influenced by a site visit to Nissan that she participated in after arriving in Japan, where she was impressed by the positive atmosphere in the workplace and the steps taken to ensure a woman-friendly work environment.Naturally, joining the company was predicated on the opportunity to apply her graduate research. Fang's strong interest in technology enabling a safe, collision-free automotive society led her to focus on researching the relationship between controls and driving errors in older drivers. Ultimately she hoped to realize the ideal of eliminating traffic accidents entirely.Current Project: Developing Onboard Systems to Rival the Human Eye and Brain Fang has been with Nissan for five years. In her first year, after completing a variety of training courses, she was assigned to the field of automatic driving control. Here she was involved with projects like path-planning simulations to be used by autonomous vehicles when parking. Starting in her second year, she was put in charge of R&D of surrounding-environment recognition for autonomous driving. In fully autonomous driving, the three elements of driving — cognition, decision and actuation — are performed by the car instead of the driver. Fang's research centered on cognition to correctly grasp conditions around the vehicle. This involves obtaining detailed information about the car's surroundings through a combination of sensor components, including cameras, millimeter-wave radar and laser scanners. This data must be rapidly and correctly integrated to detect newly emerging risks, perhaps more quickly than even a human driver can do it."The goal is to recognize the vehicle's surroundings in the same way as the human eye and brain and then process that information in order to make the correct decision," said Fang. "However, I feel that there are still several barriers that remain to be overcome before we reach that point."A Record of Successful Research: Advancing Step-by-Step, One System at a Time Many challenges remain before the final objective is reached, but research is advancing step-by-step. At the end of 2015, following experiments with a real car in California's Silicon Valley, recognition accuracy was successfully improved through fusion of multiple sensors' outputs, among other techniques. One example of success in this area is developing the ability to detect objects after they disappear behind other objects and become undetectable to sensors, then re-establishing contact when they reappear."If pedestrians or other moving bodies enter a spot not visible from the vehicle and become undetectable, serious accidents can result," said Fang. "The ability to sustain recognition of the presence of pedestrians, even if they can't be seen, and then quickly distinguish them and detect possible risks once they reemerge is crucial. This comes easily to humans, but autonomous cars have difficulty with many aspects of the task. Through revisions to our existing logic and other improvements, we're slowly but surely expanding the range of what cars can do."Incremental progress is achieved by gradually eliminating these spots where the sensors are constrained and realizing performance improvements to respond to the countless situations the driver of an autonomous car might encounter.Current Challenges: Accurately Predicting the Actions of Other Road Users Fang is currently focused on R&D aimed at correctly predicting the behavior of objects once they have been recognized by sensors."Humans look at the traffic around them and immediately assess which vehicles are trying to change lanes, which are about to slow down or turn left or right and which are about to stop," said Fang. "In order to make this ability, which humans perform so smoothly, a reality in autonomous vehicles as well, our next goal is to incorporate movement patterns into the AI and develop it to the point where highly accurate predictions can be made based on the mutual influence between objects, among other things."Even if sensors become more advanced and the range of detection around cars expands, allowing highly accurate cognition, creating systems that can make appropriate decisions based on this at the same level as a human awaits at the next phase of development. No sooner is one challenge overcome than another appears. But Fang remains positive: "Thinking about the best way to deal with challenges, not to mention experimentally testing one's ideas, is always interesting." Dreams for the Future: Helping to Protect People Through World-Leading Research and Technology The world is abuzz with news about autonomous driving. Fang finds it exciting to know that so many people across multiple industries are dedicated to realizing the same dream."The pride that comes from knowing that the technological development program I'm involved with attracts attention from all over the world is an excellent research motivator," said Fang.If fully autonomous driving becomes a reality, Fang believes, it may become possible to reduce the incidence of accidents caused by human error. It may also help lessen the burden on the environment with more efficient traffic flow brought about, for instance, by avoiding the sort of traffic congestion that arises when human drivers allow their vehicles to lose speed when traveling up a gentle slope. To make this dream for the future a reality, however, predicting and allowing for circumstances other than the ideal is also necessary."Today our R&D assumes that drivers obey the laws of the road," said Fang. "Going forward, though, we'll need to think about how to deal with situations where the surrounding cars fail to observe traffic lights or signals. A long road lies before us, but I look forward to anticipating and meeting each challenge as it comes. "A Note to Prospective Researchers "To create the car of the future, I feel that cooperation will be vital not only between people of different national backgrounds and genders but also between people with different cultures, lifestyles and backgrounds," said Fang. "Nissan's corporate culture based on cross-cultural understanding and diversity encourages all sorts of people to exercise their full potential."Based on an interview carried out in June 2016.Related Story: Read more about Nissan and Autonomous DrivingMAKI HOSHINO New Possibilities with Bioethanol-Powered EV – Reforming catalyst research with Maki HoshinoProfileMaki Hoshino completed her master's degree in materials science and engineering at the Graduate School of Engineering of Hokkaido University in 1998. The same year, she joined the Nissan Research Center where she engaged in the development of catalysts to reformulate fuel and obtain hydrogen for use in fuel-cell vehicles and fuel-reforming engines. Since 2013, she has been involved in a new research theme toward the further promotion of electric vehicles.The World's First EV Equipped with a SOFC Nissan announced the e-Bio Fuel-Cell in June 2016. It is a next-generation fuel-cell system that uses bioethanol (100 percent ethanol or ethanol-blended water) as fuel. This bioethanol is reformulated to hydrogen, which then reacts with oxygen in the atmosphere to produce the electricity that is provided to the vehicle battery and drives the motor. Nissan's program to equip an electric vehicle (EV) with a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) as a power generation unit is the first in the world. The system has many positives. Bioethanol is inexpensive and is already easily available in such countries as Brazil and the United States. It is also relatively safe and thus does not require special infrastructure. The exhaust gas is clean, and running costs are low, on a par with battery EVs. Dramatically increased cruising distance of up to about 600 km is also possible with a single fueling.The addition of this e-Bio Fuel-Cell and the e-Power which uses an engine as a generator and drives the vehicle with an electric power train, to the Nissan LEAF and other battery EVs will greatly expand the possibilities of these vehicles.Catalyst development for the reformer that lies at the core of this groundbreaking system is spearheaded by Maki Hoshino."As long as I'm working in a laboratory, I thought I'd like to be involved in developing technologies and vehicles that are the first of their kind in the world," said Hoshino. "Today I'm thrilled to have been able to realize that wish."Twenty Years in Development Captivated by Catalyst Research Soon after joining Nissan, Hoshino was assigned to the research and development team for fuel-cell vehicles, which at that time had just started up. The following year Nissan launched the R'nessa, a reformed methanol fuel-cell vehicle, and she got a taste of the sense of achievement that comes with the public release of research results. Hoshino has since been involved for many years in catalyst development for fuel-cell and gasoline engine vehicles, including the development of catalysts that produce hydrogen from gasoline or bioethanol as demanded by the times. Befitting a researcher who has followed a course of research focused solely on catalysts, her fascination continues."I'm still not tired of it," said Hoshino. "Catalysts promote chemical reactions that adsorb or bind certain molecules. But even when we repeat the same experiment, we may not obtain the same reaction because of trivial things like trace impurities in the catalyst or experimental conditions. People who work with mechanical systems have a hard time understanding my fascination with things that cannot be expressed mathematically, but those times when results differ from predictions or hypotheses are actually opportunities. There is serendipity in that chance events can become triggers for major discoveries or later developments. I guess you could say I'm obsessed with catalysts because this kind of unpredictability is so interesting."Becoming a Mother Brings Changes as a Researcher The development of battery EVs accelerated in the 2000s, and in 2010 Nissan launched a mass-produced electric vehicle, the Nissan LEAF. Even while most attention was on battery EVs, Hoshino's desire to take advantage of catalyst technology so that liquid fuel could be used remained unchanged. This stemmed from her belief that "if you can resolve the issues in front of you one at a time, even if that takes time, sooner or later you can achieve a practical application." The use of liquid fuels would mean that energy could be provided with the same refueling time as current gasoline vehicles, and cruising distance could be dramatically increased. Hoshino feels that the time is sure to come when such EVs will be needed.Around that time Hoshino got married and started a family, which brought huge changes to her lifestyle. She took maternity and childcare leave and afterward worked for a time on a shortened work schedule balancing work and childcare. Female employees before her had continued working while using these systems, so she thought continuing to work would be possible. But at the same time she felt some uncertainty."Before taking leave I had been working full-time about 10 hours a day with the inclusion of overtime," said Hoshino. "Soon after returning to the workplace I was working only about five hours a day, so I thought carefully about how I could produce results while working only half the number of hours."Just when she had nearly decided to return to full-time work early, partly because she didn't want to be a burden on her coworkers, her boss told her: "The important thing is not for you to push yourself to do more work than you can handle now but to pace yourself so that you can continue working later."That comment changed her way of thinking. She was also encouraged by coworkers who told her that childrearing is a significant contribution to society."Thanks to the warm environment, I was able to get on a good spiral of both childcare and work that took me through that time," said Hoshino. "I am now able to approach my work from two perspectives: as a mother and as a researcher. The ability to use time effectively, eliminating things that are unproductive as much as possible, may be a result of that time."Never Give Up – You're Sure to Find a Way Since giving birth, Hoshino's desire to leave a good environment for the future has grown stronger. What can we do to make a "stress-free car" with as few points of compromise as possible for both users and developers? Many ideas were put forward to answer this question, and the one that was settled on was development of the proposed "e-Bio Fuel-Cell."The e-Bio Fuel-Cell with a dramatically longer cruising range on energy provided in a refueling time similar to that of a gasoline vehicle was an idea that Hoshino agreed with. If the bioethanol comes from sugar cane as a raw material, the carbon dioxide absorbed by plants as they grow would offset CO2 emitted by the vehicle as it is driven, achieving a carbon-neutral cycle. Bioethanol is also easy to handle, so no major infrastructure investments would be needed. The ethanol-blended water being investigated is 55 percent water and 45 percent ethanol, close to the balance in some alcoholic drinks. Since bioethanol is easy to handle, the possibilities for new fuel supply also expand.In the past, the demand for ethanol did not grow because of perceived competition with the food supply. Today, though, there are proposed technologies that can produce both sugar and ethanol at higher levels than before using special enzymes in wild species of sugar cane. On isolated islands and other places where energy is difficult to obtain, the use of the e-Bio Fuel-Cell could contribute to both local production and consumption of energy and to regional development. New links between automobiles and society may be on the horizon."Not giving up is very important in producing results in research," said Hoshino. "If you continue seeking answers to research questions without compromising, you can open your own path to the future."Today Hoshino continues her devotion to research and development from the perspectives of a mother, woman and researcher with the aim of creating new automobiles and automobile societies, including future evolution of the e-Bio Fuel Cell.Based on an interview carried out in June 2016.Related Story: Read more about the world's first Solid-Oxide Fuel Cell vehicle # # #

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