ACTIVE WHEEL CORNER COMMUNITY

The Active Wheel Corner Community is a non-competitive automotive industry cluster focused on advanced corner and component solutions, initiated by the SmartCorners project. It connects partners to drive innovation, collaboration, and scalable system development across the mobility value chain with respect technologies, markets and policies.

The scope focuses on innovative vehicle architectures in which powertrain and chassis components are decoupled from the vehicle body. It emphasizes the functional integration of powertrain and chassis systems, particularly at the wheel corner level. It also includes mechatronic systems and control strategies, both at the component level and across the full vehicle.

The community is open to all partners, without limitations regarding the type of institution or geographical location. Participation is free of charge, with no formal membership structure or associated fees. Engagement is based on a merit-driven approach, where active contributors are recognized as partners, while inactive participants are not retained in the partner network.

CORE ACTIVITIES OF THE COMMUNITY

ENABLING COLLABORATION, KNOWLEDGE AND TECHNOLOGY UPTAKE

Facilitate information sharing on wheel corner technologies by establishing and maintaining dedicated communication channels such as a website and LinkedIn presence. It will support the creation of new research domains through conferences, special sessions, and scientific publications, while enabling joint visibility at key industry events

Develop and distribute knowledge and strategic insights through webinars, whitepapers, technology and market digests, and annual outlooks. It will also contribute to common terminology, policy recommendations, and standardization efforts to support alignment across the ecosystem.

Accelerate technology uptake and innovation by identifying new application cases and enabling access to shared resources, including simulation models, datasets, technology components, and distributed testing facilities

MEET THE AWCC EXPERTS

Integration at the wheel corner combines powertrain, chassis, and control functions that are normally developed in separate domains, so progress depends on shared terminology, comparable evaluation methods, and access to integrated testing resources. The Active Wheel Corner Community provides a non-competitive setting in which industrial and academic partners can establish this common basis while the technology is still open to design decisions.

The Active Wheel Corner Community provides the long-term continuation of European innovation programs such as SmartCorners and CODE4EV. As an innovation manager, I fully support this initiative to bridge research and industrialization, accelerate the uptake of scalable corner solutions, and strengthen Europe’s competitiveness in software-defined, safe and sustainable mobility.

Innovative disruptive technologies are changing the automotive world, new concepts help to overcome limits and restrictions of the past.

Active Wheel Corners (AWC) are those technologies and bring chassis and powertrain systems together – the vehicle corner becomes an integrated architecture for vehicle dynamics.

AWC will bring efficiency, comfort, performance and sustainability to the next level. Following this path will lead to innovative electric motors as well as completely new concepts for brake systems. Vertical dynamics play a crucial role, too.

The Active Wheel Corner Community is an exceptional platform for exchange of ideas and will boost AWC technologies significantly.

In-wheel motors contribute a particularly fast and precise actuator to the active wheel corner. Direct drive applies torque exactly where it is needed, at the contact patch, with no driveline in between. The torque is therefore precisely known, independently controllable at every wheel, available in both directions, and it responds in milliseconds.
In-wheel motor bandwidth is one of the things that makes coordinated corner control possible: propulsion, braking and ride control treated as one integrated function rather than as subsystems that happen to share a hub. Its maximum value appears in combination with the braking, steering and suspension actuators around it.
Much of the remaining work concerns how these systems connect to one another. The industry needs common terminology, standardized mechanical and software interfaces, and validation methods it can rely on. The Active Wheel Corner Community is the right place to develop them, and Elaphe is glad to contribute two decades of in-wheel motor experience.

COMING SOON

Vehicle dynamics is entering a new era. New technologies as active wheel, (active) electro-mechanical suspension, active camber, active kinematics are emerging technologies and could be the enablers for the future. The competitive advantage will come from the ability to seamlessly integrate and coordinate multiple actuators at the wheel corner. Software defined is born.

Active Wheel Corner technology is not simply an evolution of existing chassis systems. It is a foundational architecture for future mobility. The Active Wheel Corner Community is bringing together the expertise required to define the standards, technologies and engineering approaches that will shape the next generation of vehicles.

COMING SOON

DIVING DEEPER

APPLY TO JOIN AWCC