OPTEC - K.U.Leuven Center of Excellence: Optimization in Engineering

"Energy Management in Conventional and Hybrid Vehicles as an Optimization Problem"
Mark Eifert

 Mechanical power is obtained through a combustion process in an engine, and a part of that power may be converted to electrical power with an electric machine. The electrical power may either be buffered in an energy storage device for future use or used immediately by electrical consumers or, in the case of a full or mild hybrid system, by an electric traction motor. The control of the generation of electrical power, the control of an electrical machine as a motor and the scheduling of electrical consumers are all objectives of an energy management strategy. Such strategies generally have the goals of maintaining enough stored electrical energy to guarantee the ability to start the vehicle and always provide requested electrical power and to lower fuel consumption and emissions. They are developed with system models, whose fidelity and accuracy indirectly determine the approach and complexity of the strategy itself. A number of different approaches are possible when designing an energy management strategy. They include predictive control, which requires a prediction of vehicle states over a time horizon, or game theory, which poses the optimal control problem as a game between the controller and the environment, where neither player knows what the other will do next. In my presentation, I would like to discuss the development of energy management strategies for conventional and hybrid vehicles. In it, I will touch on basic vehicular power supply and hybrid architectures, components and their modeling. I will then discuss the optimization problem and some strategy design approaches.

Slides