Human-powered vehicles as a way to abate transport-related greenhouse gas emissions: Part 2 - A virtual prototype for emissions and performance analyses

Abstract

Velomobiles, despite their potential for efficient transportation, remain relatively unknown compared to electric cars, receiving limited attention in academic research and public awareness. This paper highlights their untapped potential and underlines public interest in their adoption, provided a velomobile meeting customer requirements is available. Leveraging the Model Based System Engineering (MBSE) methodology, this work presents a structured approach to design, focusing on customer needs translation and digital prototype validation. This iterative process ensures velomobiles meet performance criteria while minimizing environmental impact. The lack of standardized testing for the energy consumption of Human-Powered Vehicles (HPVs) is addressed by proposing an analysis of consumption under diverse operating conditions, giving information on the environmental assessments. This study underscores velomobiles’ potential as a sustainable transportation solution and provides a framework for their design, validation, and optimization.

Keywords

• Velomobile
• Model based system engineering
• Customer need
• Vehicle simulation
• Virtual prototype
• Digital twin