Center for Electric Drive Transportation

The Center for Electric Drive Transportation (CEDT) at the University of Michigan-Dearborn was established in 2011 with a grant from the U. S. Department of Energy's Graduate Automotive Technology Education (GATE) Program.

As one of the seven university research centers that were awarded the prestigious grants, CEDT is dedicated to achieving the synergy among technological development, research and graduate education in automotive engineering.

Objectives

Electric Drive Vehicles (EDV) provide an alternative to conventional transportation vehicles with advantages in energy efficiency and environmental benefit. The newly established CEDT will concentrate on researches aimed at finding innovative solutions to the challenges in EDV developments. It serves as a platform for the integration of research and development in EDV technologies and the curriculum of the graduate programs. Its primary objective is to enhance the graduate curriculum in ASE with updated EDV technologies and to integrate faculty researches with the graduate programs. The center will provide an effective environment for the training of automotive engineers who are readily capable of applying advanced technologies in the workplace for the design, development and marketing of energy efficient vehicles for daily transportation.

Specifically, concentration in Electric Drive Transportation in MS and Ph.D program in Automotive Systems Engineering will be established in out Center. We will also develop 7 new courses and a series of short courses in Electric Drive Vehicles. 5 graduate fellowships will be offered per year. What's more, an Industry Consortium will be established on Electric Drive Vehicles.

Research Areas

Research is the mainframe of CEDT activities that are aimed at achieving the optimization of electric and hybrid system design, component design and operation control.

CEDT focuses its research efforts on the thrust areas crucial for the development and commercialization of electric and hybrid vehicles. It encourages the integration of research and graduate education in terms of curriculum renovation, graduate research directions and industrial sponsorship for graduate research projects. 

Publications

Curriculum

Successful applications of advanced technologies depend on the engineers who are well trained with up-to-date curriculum and who can apply what they learned in the industry. Educating future engineers who will succeed in the automotive industry is CEDT's main objective and will be its greatest contribution in the development of electric drive transportation. 

CEDT activities will be fully integrated with the Ph.D and Master's programs in ASE and supported by the Master's degree program in Energy Systems Engineering, in the College of Engineering and Computer Science at UM-Dearborn. Under the CEDT platform, new concentration in Electric Drive Transportation is established for the Ph.D and MS in ASE programs respectively. These concentrations aim at strengthening students' training in EDV related areas. With multidisciplinary characteristics, Courses in the concentration are either newly developed or renovated to include topics related with updated EDV technologies and new development trends.

Facilities

The graduate programs (Master's and PhD Programs in ASE and Master's Program in ESE) are well supported by equipped facilities and laboratories at the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

Industry Partners

In line with the college's longstanding practice, CEDT encourages and facilitates research and education projects in collaboration with industrial partners.

With CEDT as the platform, industrial cooperation can be conducted in a variety of ways:

• Industrial funding for research projects
• Internship for Graduate students
• Guidance and advising of research projects and thrust areas
• Sponsorship of student projects
• Sponsorship of seminars, technical meetings and training sessions
• Equipment donations and sharing

Boards and Committees

CEDT has also formed an Industrial Advisory Board whose members are managers and supervisors from OEMs and suppliers in the automotive industry as well as national laboratories in related technical areas. The Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) provides inputs and guidance to CEDT on industrial development trends, joint project opportunities and impacts of research and education outcomes.

GATE Graduate Student Fellows