Ann Arbor area's Horiba engineering firm building a $10M-plus 'dyna-monster' for U.S. Army
The defense-related project for the Army’s Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) represents a relatively untapped market for Horiba's Pittsfield Township facility, which also sees solid business opportunities in the emerging hybrid and plug-in electric vehicle technologies.
Horiba in June won a subcontract from military contractor Science Applications International Corp. to design and install the system at TARDEC’s Warren campus in 2011. The work is being split between Horiba’s U.S. headquarters in Pittsfield Township and a larger heavy powertrain facility in Troy.
The so-called “dyna-monster” system will be able to accommodate tracked vehicles weighing up to 44 tons and 10-wheeled trucks weighing as much as 33 tons. The dynamometer - essentially a series of electric motor-powered treadmills used to absorb power generated by vehicles in tests - can be used to simulate a wide variety of driving conditions through open-sourced software.
“TARDEC will be able to put a driver in a station in California and connect to the vehicle mounted on our system here in Michigan and drive it,” said Rex Tapp, a vice president who heads Horiba’s U.S. and Americas division.
The system will help the Army test hybrid and other alternative-powertrain military vehicles as part of its broader sustainability strategy. It's part of TARDEC's new Ground System Power and Energy Laboratory, an eight-labs-in-one complex said to include one of the largest environmental chambers in the world.
Government reports indicate that U.S. military spending on fuel rose to $12.61 billion in 2007, most of it simply on transporting fuel to military sites. The Army has targeted broad reductions in its fuel consumption, and the branch also is aiming to boost its use of renewable energy. TARDEC did not respond to a request for comment.
“This is a major thing for the group, very consistent with…
the Army’s global strategy on where they want to go with their vehicles,” Tapp
said. “This is going to give them capabilities that they never had before, and
it’s at the highest level of visibility within the Army.”
The project is also a welcome boost to Horiba amid a crippling slowdown in automotive business.
The Kyoto, Japan-based company ended its fiscal year last Dec. 31 with lower sales ($1.48 billion) and profits ($66.2 million) for the first time in seven years, led by a large decline in the semiconductor instrument and systems division.
The company responded by adjusting its management structure
and staffing levels, including cutting 15 percent of its U.S. staff in Michigan
earlier this year, Tapp said.
Horiba Ltd. is targeting $1.64 billion in global sales for fiscal 2010.
Driving the optimism are strict regulations limiting diesel emissions - Horiba is well known as a manufacturer of emissions-testing equipment - and in systems integration with hybrid and plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles.
Heavy-duty hybrid vehicles, including hydraulic hybrids, are “an area that I think is going to receive a lot of attention,” Tapp adds, particularly as commercial truck fleet operators scramble to meet diesel particulate emissions standards.
“We see some reasonable signs for 2010,” Tapp said. "... Our quote level is actually quite high."
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