Optimization and management of energy power Flow in Hybrid

Electrical Vehicles.
G. Gruosso*
*Politecnico di Milano,
Dipartimetno di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria,
Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, 32 -I 20133 Milano (Italy),
Email: giambattista.gruosso@polimi.it, tel. +390223993696

The first one are useful to implement strategy that start

Keywords: Energy Management, Optimisation, Hybrid
Electrical Vechicle.
Abstract
The use of optimization algorithm for the management of
energy on vehicles electrical, is an innovative argument in the
field of the transports. In this context, beginning from an
accurate model of electrical device, is necessary to identify
the performances so as to reproduce the physical behavior of
the considered vehicle.
Particularly it is necessary to start from a model that takes
into account several details including Battery and all the
electrical loads.
1 Introduction
Hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) were recognized by all to
be the alternative today to conventional vehicle, once the
combination of electric motor and internal combustion engine
(ICE) can achieve better fuel consumption, as well as
pollutant emissions compared to conventional. Many
researches and studies have been developed so that the hybrid
configuration can achieve the best result possible. In this way,
batteries, electric motors and even conventional ICES must be
adapted-i.e. designed or re-size-to meet the performance.
However, none of this could be feasible without a control
strategy who oversees the behavior of each component. HEV
battery must supply the electric motors and also provide
energy for more electrical equipment, that now cover a role
important and fundamental in the vehicle. Thus, a control
strategy must be developed in order to coordinate the two
main power sources, battery and ICE, able to choose the right
operating point by considering actual external situations and
State of driven components. It is quite clear that to reduce fuel
consumption, a well-posed control strategy must be chosen.
The algorithm must be capable of manage in a smart and
efficient way the use of the different power sources of the
vehicle, while keeping the State of Charge (SOC) of the
battery in between the desired upper and lower boundaries -
all of it based on the power demanded by the driver. Usually
they are separated in two main groups, such as Rule-Based
and Optimization-Based.
from the measured parameter of the vehicles and determine
the best configuration predefined by a set o rule. The second
one are best suited for forecasting the behavior of the systems
starting from measured parameter on the vehicles, but also
considering the external conditions, the mission profile and
the driver habits[1-5].
The use of algorithms for the optimization of the
management of energy on vehicles electrical, is a central
topic in the field of the transports. In these strategies, the
optimization is made by minimizing a cost function. The
designer describes this function including the all the
parameters of interest and generally, for HEVs, fuel
consumption, emissions and generated torque. The global
optimum solution, however, is found using future and past
knowledge of power demands and, therefore, over a fixed
driving cycle. By doing so, it is quite clear that online
realtime management cannot be performed, although the
solutions could be used to create enough data to serve as basis
for rule-based algorithms and also, then, to allow algorithm
performances comparison. Anyway, some real-time
optimizations are being studying taking into account only the
instantaneous optimization of the cost function, finding, thus,
a local optimum point.
A hybrid electric vehicle is defined as a vehicle in which
propulsion is provided by two different propulsion system:
the internal combustion engine and the electric motor[1]. The
traditional propulsion system cooperate with an electric
traction device powered by an electrochemical accumulator.
Typically, the primary source is the internal combustion
engine that transforms the chemical energy of the fuel into
mechanical energy, or subsequently into electric energy via
an electric generator. The auxiliary energy source provides
energy to the electric motor. In order to realize a strategy that
optimizes the consumption of energy flowing in the whole
system, we studied the vehicle, the devices and components
present on board the vehicle. The hybrid electric considered is
a mixed system that presents two different power sources that
have different characteristics and have to cooperate to provide
the requested amount of energy. The energy management is
an open loop problem in which the input signal—that is, the
requested power, which has to follow a desired trajectory
defined by vehicle’s speed, is known. The objective of the

1
problem becomes the determination of a control variable that
defines the correct partialization of the two energy sources,
and thus, the operational mode of the vehicle.
2 Hybrid Electric Vehicle configuration
A hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is a vehicle in which
propulsion energy is available from two or more kinds of
energy storage systems or converters and at least one of them
can deliver electrical energy. Ordinary people have already in
mind that a HEV is simply a vehicle having two propulsion
system: an internal combustion engine (ICE) and an electric
motor (EM).
To present the characteristics of the vehicle considered in
these pages we proposed a description of the existing hybrid
configuration:
Figure 1: Series Configuration.
Figure 2: Parallel Configuration.
The “series” one is the most similar configuration of the
classical electric vehicle, the key ideas are: provide traction
power directly from the electric motor and arrange a system
that can store energy. On the other hand, “parallel” hybrid, is
more similar to conventional vehicle: traction power is
provided by the internal combustion engine and the electric
motor is used as a power supply in case of peak power.
2
The growing interest in this technology brought to the
definition of two more configurations:
Figure 3: Series-Parallel Configuration.
Figure 4: Complex Configuration.
These two configurations are an evolution of the basic series
and parallel hybrid. “Series-parallel” hybrid system
incorporates the feature of both series and parallel HEVs, but
involving an additional mechanical link compared with the
series hybrid and also an additional generator compared with
the parallel hybrid. “Complex” hybrid system involves a
complex configuration that can’t be classified into the above
three kinds. The complex hybrid seems to be similar to the
series-parallel hybrid, since the generator and electric motor
are both electric machinery. However, the key difference is
due to the bidirectional power flow of the electric motor in
the complex hybrid and the unidirectional power flow of the
generator in the series-parallel hybrid.
In our study we consider a hybrid series vehicle. The internal
combustion engine (ICE) is directly coupled with the electric
generator, it produces power from the combustion process of
the fuel and deliverers it as electric energy to the electric
motor for the traction. Usually the start up of the ICE is
realized with the energy present in the energy storage system.
The decoupling between the mechanical axle of the ICE and
the traction wheel produce an increment of the global
efficiency of the vehicle. In this configuration, there is the
possibility to provide exclusively electric mode for short drive
path. One of the most important element in a vehicle like this
is the energy storage system, that must be dimensioned to
achieve all the power request of every single components
installed on board, and that is able to store energy produced
by breaking system. The interface between ICE, electric
motor and energy storage system is provided by a power
electronic unit on which can be implemented energy
management strategies.
3 Control Strategy and algorithm
In this contest the energy management is a problem in which
the cost function (request power), that has to follow a desired
trajectory can be considered predefined or stochastic. The
first one condition is related to every driving cycles that are
repeatable in with it is to implement a rule-based management
strategy. On the other hand most of driving mission are not
easily determined, and require a real time optimisation able to
perform the right management strategy, taking into account
vehicle status and external parameters. The objective of the
problem is determine control variables that define the
operating mode and thus the correct mix of the propulsion
sources.
The first step of the process is to model the function that links
the driving parameter to the energy consumption of the
system seen as combination of traction power and auxiliary
system power, and then decide how to split energy between
the two different power sources in order to satisfy some
external constraints.
Introducing two parameter for power sources, the energy
balance equation can be written as:
D Pbatt (t) + E PICE (t)  J Paux (t)  GPTr (t) 0 (1)
where Ptr is the traction power, Paux is the power requested by
auxiliary systems, Pbatt and PICE are respectively the available
power of battery and internal combustion engine.
Battery power can be considered as the state variable that
describe the behaviour of the secondary power source (the
primary is the ICE power). Knowing battery capacity and
maximum input and output power of the battery, should
reasonably give and receive power when requested.
This behaviour is ruled by the D parameter, that could be
positive or negative, respectively when it sends power and it
receives power for charging. Starting from these
consideration it is clear that the optimisation problem act on
the variables D , E ,J ,G but underlies to the constraints due
to the required driving cycle, battery status and Ice emissions.
In these strategies, the optimization is made by minimizing
a cost function. The designer describes this function including
the all the parameters of interest and generally, for HEVs, fuel
consumption, emissions and generated torque. The global
optimum solution, however, is found using future and past
knowledge of power demands and, therefore, over a fixed
driving cycle. By doing so, it is quite clear that online real-
3
time management cannot be performed, although the
solutions could be used to create enough data to serve as basis
for rule-based algorithms and also, then, to allow algorithm
performances comparison. Anyway, some real-time
optimizations can be done by taking into account only the
instantaneous optimization of the cost function, finding, thus,
a local optimum point. In order to do so evolutionary
optimization algorithms are used as global search techniques,
thus they can overcome the drawbacks of the traditional
optimization methods. Among the main evolutionary
optimization approaches it is worth mentioning the Genetic
Algorithm (GA) and the Particle Swarm Optimization
(PSO)[6-7].
These algorithms are iterative techniques with strong
stochastic bases and consequently their performances are
evaluated in terms of average speed of convergence. The use
of these techniques, requiring a relevant number of the fitness
function evaluations, needs particular care if, as in this case,
the cost function is computationally expensive.
4 Results
Starting from available information of the vehicle a
quasistatic model has been developed in Matlab Simulink.
The main objective of the analysis is the energy flow
management, so we focused our attention to the variation of
requested and available power during a normal operating
cycle. The complete model is presentes in figure 5 .
1) Driving Cycle: The first block of the model is the
Driving Cycle which describes the speed of the vehicle in
specific road condition during a fixed period of time. The
considered driving cycles are standards defined in Europe
[8]:
• Braunschweig City Driving Cycle
• European Transient Cycle (ETC)
For the first one we obtain the correct data, for the second one
we realize a similar one that reproduce approximatively the
characteristics of the cycle.
The Braunschweig City Driving Cycle cycle was developed at
the Technical University of Braunschweig. It is a transient
driving schedule simulating urban driving with frequent stops.
The cycle is performed on a chassis dynamometer. The
Braunschweig Cycle had been frequently used in various
research projects, as well as for some equipment certification
programs. With the introduction of the transient ETC cycle,
the role of the Braunschweig cycle has diminuished.
Comparison studies indicated that the ETC produces about
40% lower power output and 30-70% lower regulated
emissions than the Braunschweig cycle. The European
Transient Cycle (ETC) has been introduced, together with the
ESC (European Stationary Cycle), for emission certification
of heavy-duty diesel engines in Europe starting in the year
2000. The ETC cycle has been developed by the former FIGE
Institute, Aachen, Germany, based on real road cycle
measurements of heavy duty vehicles. Different driving
conditions are represented by three parts of the ETC cycle,
including urban, rural and motorway driving. The duration of
the entire cycle is 1800s. The duration of each part is 600s.
• Part one represents city driving with a maximum
speed of 50 km/h, frequent starts, stops, and idling.
• Part two is rural driving starting with a steep
acceleration segment. The average speed is about 72 km/h
• Part three is motorway driving with average speed of
about 88 km/h.
Figure. 5. Matlab Simulink series hybrid model
Figure 6. Braunschweig City Driving Cycle
Figure. 7. Modified European Transient Cycle
The first step for the comprehension of system dynamics and
implementable strategies is the knowledge of the power
requested by the vehicle.
In Braunschweig City Driving Cycle we considered the
possibility to work, where possible, always in electric mode.
The first hypothesy we make is that battery pack could be
used until its state of charge is greater than 20%. Considering
the possibility to charge the battery on board, and that it could
receive constant power from the ICE, we simulate the system
to understand which are real possibility of the battery. To
show a complete charge and discharge cycle we duplicate the
driving cycle.
An other interesting thing to be noticed is the deacreasing of
relative battery capacity when number of charge discharge
cycles grow. This produce a right shift of state of charge of
battery and thus a reduction of electric mode of the urban bus.
The performance reduction of the battery after 5001 cycles is
around 15%, this is a technological interesting result
considering tipical performances of batteries.
Starting from this simulation we proposed an other case in
which battery pack is subjected to microcycles, from 100% to
4
80% of its SOC. This is a new technical solution that can
provide a longer battery life although we do not have precise
experimental and technical informations. In this case it is
possible to provide fast battery charge without reducing
battery life, because we are not discharging completely the
battery pack. In this simulation we considered normal
Braunschweig City Driving Cycle,.
The results obtained in this simulation can provide interesting
consideration on the use of battery for traction in a vehicle
where it is not installed to provide this feature. The simulation
on this driving cycle can not determine if it is more useful to
work exclusively in electric mode or continue working hybrid
in a situation like this, however it is possible to arrange a
certain driving period in zero emission modality.
Considering the same strategy, it has been realized a
simulation also for the European Transient Cycle. This
driving cycle is composed by three different parts, the
interesting solution is to provide traction power by the battery
in urban driving condition. Also in this case the simulation
has been realized considering two different kinds of recharge:
a fast one and a normal one. The other simulation is realized
considering normal charge, so providing less constant power
from ICE to charge the battery, figure 16. Urban driving is
still realized in pure electric mode, although battery is not
completely recharged in suburban driving, and in motorway
driving, where power request is higher and the internal
combustion engine does not succed in providing traction and
recharge power.
Figure 8. Battery charge and discharge cycle Braunschweig
City Driving Cycle: 100%-80% SOC
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