Abstract
With the promulgation of the real-world driving (RDE) emissions test procedure to the upcoming BS-VI legislation, it is becoming ubiquitous for OEMs to adopt vehicle testing drive cycles during testing that will more realistically reflect the on-road driving characteristics and emissions profile of modern powertrain technology of light duty vehicle segment. The present work spans the existing gap in knowledge in terms of validating the performance and robustness of vehicle testing drive cycles that will cater specific to the boundary conditions of Indian real-world driving activity and the preparedness for RDE legislation. The study involves on-road testing on three candidate vehicles across several days, to record essential vehicle operating characteristics describing the driving profile, road load characteristics, engine operating condition, metrological information and GPS based demographic location trace. The test routes included typical urban/sub-urban traffic patterns in Tier-1 Indian cities with frequent stop-go and increased traffic during rush-hours as well as portions of highway access. Markov chain method is used to construct drive cycle profile based on the specification of desired vehicle constraint parameters that is critical in representing acquired road load vehicle data. Further, the developed cycle was validated to compare the performance metrics to on-road driving activity.