The ongoing electrification of road vehicles needs to be supported by proper growth of charging infrastructure. In this context, dynamic wireless charging can provide a number of advantages, main being the possibility to extend vehicle range without increasing on board battery capacity, potentially reducing cost, mass, and tank-to-wheel energy consumption. The development of such solutions however poses various questions, including the acceptance and the capability of users in driving according to infrastructure characteristics; in particular, the misalignment reduction while a driver follows a straight path positively influence the charging efficiency in dynamic wireless technology. In this paper, authors describe a tests campaign to determine driving performances using both a simulator and a real world equipped vehicle. The research question of this paper is to assess and quantify differences between the two approaches. To reach this objective, in a first phase, data have been collected through a driving simulator (i.e. a full car body mounted on a parallel linked kinematics with a large screen, proposing a virtual city scenario), and in a second phase through a car equipped with a camera. As a post processing phase, statistical tools have been used to describe driving performance indexes and related impacts on wireless charging infrastructure by determining the secondary voltage on the vehicle. Data coming from the activity will be functional to be used by scenario analyst to develop characterization tests only with a simulative approach to decrease costs.

The study presented is part of the Rural Development Programme of the Tuscany Region and the European Union: the objectives are to limit the number of manual operations, to enhance technological transfer operations, to share best practices and to reduce the carbon footprint of the Scindapsus cuttings production chain. In this context, the work presents the approach to a preliminary design of an anthropomorphic system for automated cutting and potting of cuttings. For a better understanding of the current procedures and solutions, a critical analysis of the State of the Art of agricultural automation processes available in the literature was carried out. This study was developed in parallel with market research to identify the custom components to be produced to make a choice consistent with the technical specifications. The design has dealt with the system for handling and preparing the cuttings through panels and conveyor belts, starting from the needs defined in the initial phase. The analysis considered, both at a mechanical and functional level (evaluation of times and methods), the layout of production space with a high degree of automation for cutting and potting cuttings, with particular attention to the issues of the workplace safety and the maintainability of the elements: the best configuration of resources, personnel and equipment were designed through a what-if scenario analysis populated by deterministic and stochastic events.