SIMULATION TOOL FOR OPTIMIZATION AND PERFORMANCE PREDICTION OF A GENERIC HYBRID ELECTRIC SERIES POWERTRAIN

Hybrid and electric vehicles are taking an increasingly important slice of the market, gaining much interest from major car manufacturers which have decided to invest in this sector, taking as example the pioneers like Toyota. The key factor to hybrid and electric vehicle success is a good overall mileage achieved from the battery back or powertrain. The purpose of this work is to provide a support to design, testing, and development of such vehicles through the implementation of a mathematical model in order to simulate the operation and predict the performance of a generic ground vehicle equipped with either a purely electric or a hybrid-electric type powertrain. The model should enable the user to estimate the impact of various control strategies on mileage range, efficiency, energy consumption, etc. The model should also allow for a significant time to market reduction with all the related benefits in terms of cost etc. A validation is also provided, based on the application of this tool on a so-called micro-car (0.5t GVW class). Thanks to a joint research project with the manufacturer it has been possible to compare model results with real-world data directly obtained during road testing with the help of a data acquisition system.