A Hierarchical Energy Control Strategy for Hybrid Electric Vehicle with Fuel Cell/Battery/Ultracapacitor Combining Fuzzy Controller and Status Regulator

In order to improve the fuel economy of fuel cell hybrid electric vehicles (FCHEV), a hierarchical energy management strategy (HEMS) is proposed to rationally allocate the required power to a hybrid power system with three energy sources: fuel cell, battery, and ultracapacitor. First of all, batteries and ultracapacitors are regarded as energy storage systems (ESS), which convert the distribution problem from three energy sources to two couples of energy sources. Secondly, fuzzy logic controllers are utilized in upper-layer energy management strategies (EMS) to distribute required power to fuel cell systems and the ESS. To extend the service life of the fuel cell and increase the maintenance ability of the state of charge (SOC) of the battery, a status regulation module is introduced to allocate the required power combined with fuzzy controller. Thirdly, an adaptive low-pass filter is applied to a lower-layer EMS based on the energy characteristics of the ultracapacitor, which fully utilizes the ultracapacitor. Finally, the economic and dynamic performance of the vehicle are compared between the HEMS and the power following strategy (PFS) under five typical cycle conditions: UDDS, WVUINTER, NEDC, HWFET and COMBINE. The results of the simulation show that the hydrogen consumption of the HEMS is reduced and the overall vehicle energy efficiency is increased in four operating conditions, which indicates that the proposed strategy has better economic performance. In addition, the dynamic performance of the vehicle is also improved.

Automated summary

In order to improve the fuel economy of fuel cell hybrid electric vehicles (FCHEV), a hierarchical energy management strategy (HEMS) is proposed. The strategy is able to effectively allocate power to the hybrid power system with three energy sources: fuel cell, battery, and ultracapacitor, resulting in reduced hydrogen consumption and improved overall energy efficiency, as demonstrated by simulation experiments.