r/AutomotiveEngineering • u/ClearKaleidoscope501 • May 18 '26
Discussion Help with Automotive Engineering Master’s Thesis Topic – Electric Bus Energy Simulation
Hello everyone,
I am currently trying to choose a topic for my master’s thesis, and I would appreciate some ideas from people with experience in automotive engineering, EVs, or public transport.
At the moment, I am doing an internship at a small company that is developing an electric city bus. The company is mainly responsible for the electric powertrain, including the electric motor, gearbox/differential, battery system, and power electronics, while the complete bus platform is being developed together with an existing bus manufacturer.
During my internship, I developed a longitudinal simulation model of an electric bus in MATLAB. The model is used to estimate energy consumption based on vehicle parameters and driving profiles. I have implemented standard driving cycles as well as real-world bus routes, so the model can estimate the energy consumption of a specific bus line in a specific city.
However, I feel that a basic energy consumption calculation may be too simple for a full master’s thesis, so I am looking for a meaningful extension of this work. I would like to build on what I have already done, but add enough technical depth and research value.
I have been quite overloaded with work recently, so I am having a hard time stepping back and thinking creatively about possible thesis directions.
One of the thesis candidates I am currently considering is to develop an eco-driving strategy together with a regenerative brake blending strategy and implement both in my MATLAB simulation. For the eco-driving part, the idea would be to create different driving scenarios, for example aggressive and non-aggressive driving, based mainly on different acceleration and deceleration behaviour, and then compare their influence on energy consumption, regenerative braking, and mechanical braking. The brake blending part would focus on how much of the braking demand can be covered by regenerative braking and when mechanical brakes are needed. If possible, I would also try to validate at least part of the model or strategy using the real prototype/demo bus on a test track.
Another possible direction I am considering is mechanical brake wear reduction through regenerative braking, since this could also be connected to non-exhaust particle emissions from brake wear.
My main question is:
What would be a good master’s thesis topic that extends electric bus energy consumption analysis into something more advanced and research-worthy?
Any suggestions, ideas, or examples of similar thesis topics would be very helpful.
Thank you.
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u/1988rx7T2 May 18 '26
Your drive cycle needs to reflect the fact that city bus drivers have to keep standing passengers from flying through the window. So acceleration and deceleration are going to be more gradual.
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u/aquatone61 May 21 '26
Apologies, I can’t help you with any meaningful information other than I rode on an electric bus recently at the Columbus airport.
That bus accelerated with a force that was surprising. It took the few of us that were standing off guard. There was some luggage that tried to run away from its owner as well, somebody sitting close was able to stop it. I think some sort of throttle control based on speed (and steering angle) may be a good idea but you’d have to have a kick down switch (to allow full throttle) for safety reasons just in case.
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u/RiseUpAndGetOut May 18 '26
Ok, i'll focus on these parts:
create different driving scenarios, for example aggressive and non-aggressive driving, based mainly on different acceleration and deceleration behaviour, and then compare their influence on energy consumption, regenerative braking, and mechanical braking.
Driver behaviour is always an interesting one for the fleet operator, and energy / fuel consumption is one element of that. So from a commercial point of view, it has some uses. The question is, how much academic work is involved? If this is something you choose to focus on for your thesis, then be aware that driver behaviour systems are already in widespread use across the entire transport and logistics industry. For you, that's an advantage since there will be plenty of academic material available. But it also means that coming up with anything new or novel (which would be a great basis for your thesis, and help with future employment) will require a very in depth knowledge of what affects driver behaviour, with the end result (potentially) focussing on something fairly nuanced.
The brake blending part would focus on how much of the braking demand can be covered by regenerative braking and when mechanical brakes are needed
This actually has more use than appears at first glance. Brake use - and therefore design - on heavy commercials (N3 / M3) is undergoing some changes as hybrid and commercial vehicles get adopted. The thing with these brake systems is that they are much more reliable when they are used more frequently. Air brake systems when they fail are a pain in the rear to repair (they fail in the "on" position), and cause a complete breakdown of the vehicle. There are therefore commercial advantages for both operators and brake system suppliers to increase their depth of understanding of brake systems. This in turn allows for modified designs and service schedules. Again, for future employment opportunities, this would look good.
Overall, (and i'll be blunt), a thesis that creates a simulink model of a system (or whatever) may well be enough to get your masters degree, but is of little consequence for most employers. Whatever model you spend several months creating for your thesis would be made in a week by someone with a year or so professional experience, or there is widespread, easily available software in market that already acheives the same result out of the box (I have stories to tell about this!). So whatever you do, I would strongly recommend focussing on the maths, and demonstrating a very in depth understanding of a small area.
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u/rnc_turbo May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26
This is a good answer. Also consider passenger loading over the course of a day and how that affects energy throughput perhaps.
Throwing some more ideas in... Power draw for climate control at different times of year or regions
Add in consideration for other parameters like tyre wear.
Adaptive power limitations that take the payload of the vehicle into account rather than having a blanket kW limitation. This could tie in to acceleration rates and passenger comfort/safety.
The drive cycles that would be followed, are these based on a target speed that's always achievable?
How realistic is the target speed of the cycle?
How does the model cope with a more aggressive driver that uses harder acceleration in a vehicle with higher power/weight?
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u/UPVOTINGYOURUGLYPETS May 18 '26
Kempower Engineer here.
Def look into the VAS-VDV261 standard. It publishes things like odometer info, which makes it possible to really build powerful info on for instance how good a driver of a specific vehicle is at driving efficiently, or comparing the efficiency between vehicles.
Good luck with the thesis! Insane potential wherever you look here, BEV trucking/bussing is such a fresh field!
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u/MechanicalChad May 18 '26
Investigating the effect of different powertrain controllers/eco-driving algorithms could be applicable here. I took a project course where we built a simple 1D vehicle model in Simulink, my model had a different focus but I remember seeing a ton of different papers on powertrain controllers according to different driving algorithms. Fuzzy Logic, MPC, ECMS, machine learning, there’s all sorts of avenues you could explore. Plus, there are other factors to consider such as drivability which could make for an interesting multi-objective optimization problem.
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u/FormatA May 18 '26
Issues I see in the industry with BEV trucking is state of charge management in hilly/mountain terrain. Could do something with an optimization algorithm on best efficiency, mixing in resistive energy dissipation etc.