Advanced rule-based energy management for better fuel economy of hybrid electric tracked vehicle

Abstract

All recent technological developments in the field of power distribution in hybrid electric tracked vehicles are often hard to apply and carry high computational burden which makes them impractical for real-time applications. In this paper, a novel control strategy is proposed for parallel hybrid electric tracked vehicle based on robust and easy to implement thermostat strategy with added merits of power follower control strategy (PFCS). The goal of the control strategy is enhanced fuel economy. Serbian infantry fighting vehicle BVP M80-A is chosen as the reference vehicle. For the purpose of validation, a backward-looking, high fidelity model is created in Simulink environment. Investigation of the results indicates that the proposed control strategy offers 12.8% better fuel economy while effectively maintaining battery state of charge (SOC). Even better results (23.2%) were achieved applying the proposed strategy to a model with an additional generator. It is concluded that further improvements can be made with combined sizing and control optimization.

Keywords

• energy management
• hybrid tracked vehicle
• thermostat strategy
• power follower strategy
• rule-based control
• energy efficiency