Improved Vehicle Cabin Air Quality by Control of Air Recirculation Using Spatiotemporally Resolved Interactive Air Quality Map

Abstract

It has been established that automobile in-cabin air quality can be improved by controlling the air recirculation. It has been done since 1989 by closing and opening the flap at the right times to keep high pollution out of the cabin. This study evaluates in-cabin pollution reduction using flap open/ close strategies based on real-time air quality map information received by the vehicle. Traffic pollution data was collected from vehicles with on-board air quality sensors driven for months within a city. This data was used to create high-resolution pollution maps. Using these maps, a flap open/ close algorithm was designed and applied to a set of recorded trips. The amount of pollution entering the vehicle cabin was then calculated and compared, with and without flap control. Results show that the in-cabin pollution reduction achieved with flap control is significant, even with a limited amount of data collected to create the maps. It is expected that the maps will gain in predictive value, as the amount of data collected to calculate them increases. This should in turn increase the pollution reduction efficiency of the method.