NEWS

10.31.2024
Cost-effective recycling of EV batteries is a critical piece in building sustainable EV circular economy in underserved rural areas. Prof. Pingen Chen led an interdisciplinary team and received over $4.8 million award from U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Vehicle Technologies Office to design, develop, demonstrate, and validate innovative compact mobile preprocessing hubs that can be transported and deployed at local collection points to safely dismantle and shred end of life EV batteries. Project team includes Tennessee Technological University (lead), Princeton NuEnergy, Volkswagen Group of America, Inc., Nissan North America, Oak Ridge National Lab, Univ. of Texas at Austin, TN Clean Fuels Coalition (2), Virginia Clean Cities, Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, Virginia Department of Energy, CFC Recycling, and Tennessee Scrap Recyclers Association. Details of award selection can be found in link below:
10.30.2024
Prof. Pingen Chen led an interdisciplinary team and received close to 1 million award from U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Vehicle Technologies Office to study the electrification of the public vehicle fleets in TN. The project is titled “Charging Tennessee: Advancing Public Vehicle Fleet Electrification.” The project will demonstrate an innovative electric vehicle (EV) testbed for diverse public vehicle fleets in two of the most rapidly growing cities in TN, Nashville and Chattanooga. The project will also demonstrate an electric park-and-ride system to serve as centralized charging hub for commuters who own EVs but lack at-home charging. Project team includes Tennessee Technological University (lead), East Tennessee Clean Fuels Coalition, Middle-West Tennessee Clean Fuels Coalition, Nashville Dept. of Transportation and Multimodal Infrastructure, Nashville Electric Service, City of Chattanooga, Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Phoenix Motorcars. Details can be found in links below:

11.16.2022

An interdisciplinary team led by Prof. Pingen Chen at APECL with 18 partners, received more than 4.5 millions award from U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Vehicle Technologies Office and additional 4.5 millions from project partners to develop affordable and scalable second-life battery integrated mobile charging station technologies to support rural electrification in seven states (including TN, KY, WV, VA, OH, TX, and KS). Our project is titled “Second-life Battery in Mobile EV Charging Application for Rural Transportation (SMART).” The press release from DOE can be found as below.
Nov. 9 2022
The signature DOE VTO-supported Rural EV Testbed project known as “Upper Cumberland EV Testbed Project” has received 2022 Sustainable Transportation Award by Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation at 2022 Tennessee Sustainable Transportation Forum & Expo. Congratulations to the entire team including Tennessee Technological University (lead), The University of Texas at Austin, Nissan North America, Phoenix Motorcars, East Tennessee Clean Fuels Coalition, Seven States Power Corporation, ChargePoint, Upper Cumberland Human Resource Agency, Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Nov. 7-8 2022
Prof. Pingen Chen was invited as panel speakers for “Electrifying Rural Communities & the Next Steps needed for Action” and “Mobility Justice and Expanding Transportation Access” at 2022 Tennessee Sustainable Transportation Forum & Expo and Drive Electric TN (DET) Momentum Summit.

8.06.2022

Prof. Pingen Chen was invited to speak about the challenges and opportunities of rural electrification at the inaugural Tennessee Smart Mobility Expo in the Smart Academia session, Aug 4-6, 2022, Nashville TN. More information can be accessed via https://www.tnsmartmobilityexpo.com/

7.01.2022

Prof. Pingen Chen, the founding director of APECL, achieved tenure and promotion. He is now Associate Professor with Mechanical Engineering. Congratulations to Dr. Chen and his team for the achievement!
6.30.2022
APECL group has 4 papers accepted in 2022 Modeling, Estimation and Control Conference (MECC 2022) . Congratulations to Zifei, Max, and Cody.
6.15.2022
APECL group has 2 papers accepted in10th IFAC Symposium: Advances in Automotive Control . Congratulations to Zifei and Cody.
4.15.2022
Prof. Chen recently received funding from Cummins Inc. to develop on-board diagnostic algorithms to estimate the aging levels of selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems, which serve as the primary NOx emission control systems for modern Diesel engines.

1.15.2022

Dr. Kuo Yang (the former PhD student graduated from APECL in Fall 2021) will join Southwest Research Institute as a senior engineer starting from Feb. 2022. Southwest Research Institute is one of the top research institutions in the world (https://www.swri.org/). We certainly wish Dr. Kuo Yang the best in the next chapter of his career.
11.17.2021
Senior PhD student, Kuo Yang, has successfully passed his defense and will graduate in December 2021. Congratulations, Dr. Yang!
11.01.2021
An interdisciplinary team led by Prof. Pingen Chen at APECL with more than 60+ partners, received more than 4 millions award from U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Vehicle Technologies Office to help rural and low-income communities in Appalachia to lower greenhouse gas emissions and transportation cost, and support transition to green economy. Our project is titled “Rural Reimagined: Building an EV Ecosystem and Green Economy for Transforming Lives in Economically Distressed Appalachia.” The press release from DOE can be found as below.
04.26.2021
APECL group has 2 papers accepted in 2021 IEEE Conference on Control Technology and Applications (CCTA) . Congratulations to the excellent team work by Zifei and Shuainan.
03.18.2021
Dr. Chen received the prestigious 2021 Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award from SAE.
01.25.2021
APECL group has 2 papers accepted in 2021 American Control Conference. Congratulations to the excellent team work by Devin, Max, and Zifei.
11.30.2020
The pilot EV demonstration project led by Prof. Pingen Chen was featured on The Tennessean, which is the principal daily newspaper in Nashville, Tennessee. See more via the following link:
10.6.2020
Prof. Pingen Chen was elected as the Session Organizer for ASME Automotive & Transportation Systems (ATS) Technical Committee at 2020 Dynamic Systems and Controls Conference to serve the ATS community. Congratulations.
Please visit our LinkedIn page or ASME website to join ATS community:
10.1.2020
APECL received funding from Department of Energy to demonstrate medium-duty electric truck (eTruck) in Texas and Tennessee for regional and city applications. In this 2-million project, Prof. Pingen Chen (Co-PI) and Prof. Junmin Wang (PI of the project from University of Texas at Austin) each will lead a large team in Tennessee and Texas, respectively, for pilot demonstration of eTrucks. Congratulations.
09.10.2020
APECL group welcomes two new students, Cody Innis and Zifei Su, to join our PhD group. Look forward to the opportunity to work with both of them.
06.10.2020
APECL group has 2 papers accepted for publication in 2020 ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Conference. Congratulations to Devin and Kuo.
05.29.2020
Senior member in APECL, Qinghua Lin, has successfully graduated from Tennessee Tech University with a doctoral degree. She will join CTS as R&D engineer after graduation. Congratulations, Dr. Lin.
01.16.2020
APECL group has 2 papers accepted in 2020 American Control Conference. Congratulations to the Kuo and Dakota.
01.01.2020
Senior member in APECL group, Dakota Strange, has successfully passed his defense and graduated from Tennessee Tech University with a master degree. Congratulations, Dakota.
12.10.2019
Prof. Chen received the Distinguished Researcher award from the Tennessee Tech Student Chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The award was presented by Tennessee Tech Student Chapter of ASME at the annual Mechanical Engineering department holiday luncheon.
08.16.2019
Prof. Chen received a prestigious DOE grant for the project titled “Developing an EV Demonstration Testbed in the Upper Cumberland Region of Tennessee, an Economy Distressed Rural Region.” The partners include Nissan North America, Oak Ridge National Lab, East Tennessee Clean Fuels Coalition, University of Texas – Austin, Lightning Systems, Seven States Power Corporation, ChargePoint, Upper Cumberland Human Resource Agency, and Lyft.
06.17.2019
Prof. Chen received a research grant from Denso North America Foundation for developing a level-2 (hands-off) autonomous electric vehicle.
05.07.2019
Prof. Chen’s research group achieved a full-access engine control unit for a Toyota V6 gasoline engine using dSPACE MicroAutoBox and RapidPro control system. The research work is led by PhD student Qinghua Lin and master student Dakota Strange. Amazing achievement and congratulations!
03.29.2019
Prof. Chen received faculty research grant from Tennessee Tech University for conducting a project on developing advanced gasoline engine with non-uniform cylinder-to-cylinder combustion strategies. Congratulations!
03.20.2019
Qinghua will start her internship in Summer 2019 at Cummins Technical Center in Columbus IN, which is one of the world-leading organization for engine research. Congratulations!
03.06.2019
Qinghua published a journal paper titled “Experimental Study and Model Predictive Control of a Lean-burn Gasoline Engine Coupled with a Passive Selective Catalytic Reduction System” on prestigious ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control. Congratulations!
03.01.2019
APECL at Tennessee Tech added unique in-house on-engine accelerated catalyst hydrothermal aging capability.
01.31.2019
APECL group has 2 papers accepted in 2019 American Control Conference. Congratulations to the team.
01.08.2019
APECL group has 2 papers accepted in 2019 SAE World Congress and Exhibitions. Congratulations to the team.
11.02.2018
Sachin Joshi and Tyler Qualls joined APECL as master students from Fall 2018. Welcome!
11.02.2018
Brandon Childress passed his master thesis defense. Congratulations!
08.25 2018
Brandon received travel grant to attend the 57th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control. Congratulations.
08.15 2018
Qinghua, Kuo, Brandon, and Dakota received travel grant to attend the upcoming ASME 2018 DSCC Conference. Congratulations.
07.13 2018
APECL group has one paper accepted for publication in the 57th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control. Congratulations to Brandon Childress.
06.06 2018
APECL group has 5 papers accepted for publication in 2018 ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Conference. Congratulations to the team.
06.01 2018
Prof. Chen’s project on developing advanced emission gas analyzing system has been funded by Denso Foundation Grant!
05.01.2018
Two outstanding Researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Jason Cook and Ethan Coffey, joined APECL to pursue their doctoral degrees. Welcome, Jason and Ethan.
05.01.2018
Qinghua Lin published a journal article titled “An NOx Sensor-Based Direct Algebraic Approach-Newton Observer for Urea Selective Catalytic Reduction System State Estimations” in ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control.
01.20.2018
APECL group has 4 papers accepted in 2018 American Control Conference. Congratulations to the team.
01.16.2018
Dakota Strange joined APECL as a master student starting from Spring 2018. Welcome!
10.19.2017
Prof. Chen is now serving as an Associate Editor for SAE International Journal of Engines.
09.01.2017
Prof. Chen’s project on decoupling NOx sensor signals for Diesel engine selective catalytic reduction system was funded by Cummins Inc.
08.01.2017
PhD student, Kuo Yang, joined Automotive Powertrain and Emissions Control Laboratory. at Tennessee Tech. Welcome Kuo!
06.05.2017
Dr. Chen and his research group have one paper accepted for publication in 2017 Dynamic Systems and Control Conference. Congratulations!
04.29.2017
Cummins Inc. donated a complete set of 6.7L ISB Diesel engine and aftertreatment system to APECL for research. Sincere thanks and appreciation to Cummins for sponsoring APECL.
01.23.2017
Dr. Chen and his research group have three papers accepted for publication in Proceedings of the 2017 American Control Conference. Congratulations!
11.18.2016
Talented undergraduate students, Jeremy R Sharer, Dakota Strange, Michael Kindred, Andrew Doyka, Benjamin Hargis, joined Automotive Powertrain and Emissions Control Laboratory.
09.13.2016
Tennessee Tech University is ranked in the top tier as a national university in 2017 U.S. News & World Report’s annual college rankings.
08.10.2016
Ph.D student, Qinghua Lin, joined Automotive Powertrain and Emissions Control Laboratory.
08.01.2016
Automotive Powertrain and Emissions Control Laboratory was founded at Tennessee Technological University by Prof. Pingen Chen!