Implementation Of Fuzzy Logic Control Into An Equivalent Minimization Strategy For Adaptive Energy Management Of A Parallel Hybrid Electric Vehicle

As government agencies continue to tighten emissions regulations due to the continued increase in greenhouse gas production, automotive industries are seeking to produce increasingly efficient vehicle technology. Electric vehicles have been introduced by the industry, showing promising signs of reducing emissions production in the automotive sector. However, many consumers may be hesitant to purchase fully electric vehicles due to several uncertainty variables including available charging stations. Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) have been introduced to reduce problems while improving fuel economy. HEVs have led to the demand of creating more advanced controls software to consider multiple components for propulsive power in a vehicle. A large section in the software development process is the implementation of an optimal energy management strategy meant to improve the overall fuel efficiency of the vehicle. Optimal strategies can be implemented when driving conditions are known a prior. The Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy (ECMS) is an optimal control strategy that uses an equivalence factor to equate electrical to mechanical power when performing torque split determination between the internal combustion engine and electric motor for propulsive and regenerative torque. This equivalence factor is determined from offline vehicle simulations using a sensitivity analysis to provide optimal fuel economy results while maintaining predetermined high voltage battery state of charge (SOC) constraints. When the control hierarchy is modified or different driving styles are applied, the analysis must be redone to update the equivalence factor. The goal of this work is to implement a fuzzy logic controller that dynamically updates the equivalence factor to improve fuel economy, maintain a strict charge sustaining window of operation for the high voltage battery, and reduce computational time required during algorithm development. The adaptive algorithm is validated against global optimum fuel economy and charge sustaining results from a sensitivity analysis performed for multiple drive cycles. Results show a maximum fuel economy improvement of 9.82% when using a mild driving style and a 95% success rate when maintaining an ending SOC within 5% regardless of starting SOC. Recommendations for modification of the fuzzy logic controller are made to produce additional fuel economy and charge sustaining benefits from the parallel hybrid vehicle model

Enhanced Eco-Approach Control of Connected Electric Vehicles at Signalized Intersection with Queue Discharge Prediction

Long queues of vehicles are often found at signalized intersections, which increases the energy consumption of all the vehicles involved. This paper proposes an enhanced eco-approach control (EEAC) strategy with consideration of the queue ahead for connected electric vehicles (EVs) at a signalized intersection. The discharge movement of the vehicle queue is predicted by an improved queue discharge prediction method (IQDP), which takes both vehicle and driver dynamics into account. Based on the prediction of the queue, the EEAC strategy is designed with a hierarchical framework: the upper-stage uses dynamic programming to find the general trend of the energy-efficient speed profile, which is followed by the lower-stage model predictive controller to computes the explicit solution for a short horizon with guaranteed safe inter-vehicular distance. Finally, numerical simulations are conducted to demonstrate the energy efficiency improvement of the EEAC strategy. Besides, the effects of the queue prediction accuracy on the performance of the EEAC strategy are also investigated

Saving Fuel for Heavy-Duty Vehicles Using Connectivity and Automation

The booming of e-commerce is placing an increasing burden on freight transport system by demanding faster and larger amount of delivery. Despite the variety in freight transport means, the dominant freight transport method is still ground transport, or specifically, transport by heavy-duty vehicles. Roughly one-third of the annual ground freight transport expense goes to fuel expenses. If fuel costs could be reduced, the finance of freight transport would be improved and may increase the transport volume without additional charge to average consumers. A further benefit of reducing fuel consumption would be the related environmental impact. The fuel consumption of the heavy-duty vehicles, despite being the minority of road vehicles, has a major influence on the whole transportation sector, which is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, saving fuel for heavy-duty trucks would also reduce greenhouse gas emission, leading to environmental benefits. For decades, researchers and engineers have been seeking to improve the fuel economy of heavy-duty vehicles by focusing on vehicles themselves, working on advancing the vehicle design in many aspects. More recently, attention has turned to improve fuel efficiency while driving in the dynamic traffic environment. Fuel savings effort may be realized due to advancements in connected and automated vehicle technologies, which provide more information for vehicle design and control. This dissertation presents state-of-the-art techniques that utilize connectivity and automation to improve the fuel economy of heavy-duty vehicles, while allowing them to stay safe in real-world traffic environments. These techniques focus on three different levels of vehicle control, and can result in significant fuel improvements at each level. Starting at the powertrain level, a gear shift schedule design approach is proposed based on hybrid system theory. The resulting design improves fuel economy without comprising driveability. This new approach also unifies the gear shift logic design of human-driven and automated vehicles, and shows a large potential in fuel saving when enhanced with higher level connectivity and automation. With this potential in mind, at the vehicle level, a fuel-efficient predictive cruise control algorithm is presented. This mechanism takes into account road elevation, wind, and aggregated traffic information acquired via connectivity. Moreover, a systematic tool to tune the optimization parameters to prioritize different objectives is developed. While the algorithm and the tool are shown to be beneficial for heavy-duty vehicles when they are in mild traffic, such benefits may not be attainable when the traffic is dense. Thus, at the traffic level, when a heavy-duty vehicle needs to interact with surrounding vehicles in dense traffic, a connected cruise control algorithm is proposed. This algorithm utilizes beyond-line-of-sight information, acquired through vehicle-to-vehicle communication, to gain a better understanding of the surrounding traffic so that the vehicle can response to traffic in a fuel efficient way. These techniques can bring substantial fuel economy improvements when applied individually. In practice, it is important to integrate these three techniques at different levels in a safe manner, so as to acquire the overall benefits. To achieve this, a safety verification method is developed for the connected cruise control, to coordinate the algorithms at the vehicle level and the traffic level, maximizing the fuel benefits while staying safe.PHDMechanical EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147523/1/hchaozhe_1.pd

Intelligent Transportation Systems, Hybrid Electric Vehicles, Powertrain Control, Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control, Model Predictive Control

Information obtainable from Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) provides the possibility of improving the safety and efficiency of vehicles at different levels. In particular, such information has the potential to be utilized for prediction of driving conditions and traffic flow, which allows us to improve the performance of the control systems in different vehicular applications, such as Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs) powertrain control and Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC). In the first part of this work, we study the design of an MPC controller for a Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) system, which is an automated application that provides the drivers with extra benefits, such as traffic throughput maximization and collision avoidance. CACC systems must be designed in a way that are sufficiently robust against all special maneuvers such as interfering vehicles cutting-into the CACC platoons or hard braking by leading cars. To address this problem, we first propose a Neural- Network (NN)-based cut-in detection and trajectory prediction scheme. Then, the predicted trajectory of each vehicle in the adjacent lanes is used to estimate the probability of that vehicle cutting-into the CACC platoon. To consider the calculated probability in control system decisions, a Stochastic Model Predictive Controller (SMPC) needs to be designed which incorporates this cut-in probability, and enhances the reaction against the detected dangerous cut-in maneuver. However, in this work, we propose an alternative way of solving this problem. We convert the SMPC problem into modeling the CACC as a Stochastic Hybrid System (SHS) while we still use a deterministic MPC controller running in the only state of the SHS model. Finally, we find the conditions under which the designed deterministic controller is stable and feasible for the proposed SHS model of the CACC platoon. In the second part of this work, we propose to improve the performance of one of the most promising realtime powertrain control strategies, called Adaptive Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy (AECMS), using predicted driving conditions. In this part, two different real-time powertrain control strategies are proposed for HEVs. The first proposed method, including three different variations, introduces an adjustment factor for the cost of using electrical energy (equivalent factor) in AECMS. The factor is proportional to the predicted energy requirements of the vehicle, regenerative braking energy, and the cost of battery charging and discharging in a finite time window. Simulation results using detailed vehicle powertrain models illustrate that the proposed control strategies improve the performance of AECMS in terms of fuel economy by 4\%. Finally, we integrate the recent development in reinforcement learning to design a novel multi-level power distribution control. The proposed controller reacts in two levels, namely high-level and low-level control. The high-level control decision estimates the most probable driving profile matched to the current (and near future) state of the vehicle. Then, the corresponding low-level controller of the selected profile is utilized to distribute the requested power between Electric Motor (EM) and Internal Combustion Engine (ICE). This is important because there is no other prior work addressing this problem using a controller which can adjust its decision to the driving pattern. We proposed to use two reinforcement learning agents in two levels of abstraction. The first agent, selects the most optimal low-level controller (second agent) based on the overall pattern of the drive cycle in the near past and future, i.e., urban, highway and harsh. Then, the selected agent by the high-level controller (first agent) decides how to distribute the demanded power between the EM and ICE. We found that by carefully designing a training scheme, it is possible to effectively improve the performance of this data-driven controller. Simulation results show up to 6\% improvement in fuel economy compared to the AECMS

Advanced stratified charge rotary aircraft engine design study

A technology base of new developments which offered potential benefits to a general aviation engine was compiled and ranked. Using design approaches selected from the ranked list, conceptual design studies were performed of an advanced and a highly advanced engine sized to provide 186/250 shaft Kw/HP under cruise conditions at 7620/25,000 m/ft altitude. These are turbocharged, direct-injected stratified charge engines intended for commercial introduction in the early 1990's. The engine descriptive data includes tables, curves, and drawings depicting configuration, performance, weights and sizes, heat rejection, ignition and fuel injection system descriptions, maintenance requirements, and scaling data for varying power. An engine-airframe integration study of the resulting engines in advanced airframes was performed on a comparative basis with current production type engines. The results show airplane performance, costs, noise & installation factors. The rotary-engined airplanes display substantial improvements over the baseline, including 30 to 35% lower fuel usage

Effect of Pulse‐and‐Glide Strategy on Traffic Flow for a Platoon of Mixed Automated and Manually Driven Vehicles

The fuel consumption of ground vehicles is significantly affected by how they are driven. The fuel‐optimized vehicular automation technique can improve fuel economy for the host vehicle, but their effectiveness on a platoon of vehicles is still unknown. This article studies the performance of a well‐known fuel‐optimized vehicle automation strategy, i.e., Pulse‐and‐Glide (PnG) operation, on traffic smoothness and fuel economy in a mixed traffic flow. The mixed traffic flow is assumed to be a single‐lane highway on flat road consisting of both driverless and manually driven vehicles. The driverless vehicles are equipped with fuel economy‐oriented automated controller using the PnG strategy. The manually driven vehicles are simulated using the Intelligent Driver Models (IDM) to mimic the average car‐following behavior of human drivers in naturalistic traffics. A series of simulations are conducted with three scenarios, i.e., a single car, a car section, and a car platoon. The simulation results show that the PnG strategy can significantly improve the fuel economy of individual vehicles. For traffic flows, the fuel economy and traffic smoothness vary significantly under the PnG strategy.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/115907/1/mice12168.pd

Real-time Autonomous Cruise Control of Connected Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles Under Uncertainty

Advances in embedded digital computing and communication networks have enabled the development of automated driving systems. Autonomous cruise control (ACC) and cooperative ACC (CACC) systems are two popular types of these technologies, which can be implemented to enhance safety, traffic flow, driving comfort and energy economy. This PhD thesis develops robust and adaptive controllers for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), with the Toyota Plug-in Prius as the baseline vehicle, in order to enable them to perform safe and robust car-following and platooning with improved vehicle performance. Three controllers are designed here to achieve three main goals. The first goal of this thesis is the development of a real-time Ecological ACC (Eco-ACC) system for PHEVs, that is robust to uncertainties. A novel adaptive tube-based nonlinear model predictive control (AT-NMPC) approach to the design of Eco-ACC systems is proposed. Through utilizing two separate models to define the constrained optimal control problem, this method takes into account uncertainties, modeling errors and delayed data in the design of the controller and guaranties robust constraint handling for the assumed uncertainty bounds. {In addition, it adapts to changes in order to improve the control performance when possible.} Furthermore, a Newton/GMRES fast solver is employed to implement the designed AT-NMPC in real-time. The second goal is the development of a real-time Ecological CACC (Eco-CACC) system that can simultaneously satisfy the frequency-domain and time-domain platooning criteria. A novel distributed reference governor (RG) approach to the constraint handling of vehicle platoons equipped with CACC is presented. RG sits behind the controlled string stable system and keeps the output inside the defined constraints. Furthermore, to improve the platoon's energy economy, a controller is presented for the leader's control using NMPC method, assuming it is a PHEV. The third objective of this thesis is the control of heterogeneous platoons using an adaptive control approach. A direct model reference adaptive controller (MRAC) is designed that enforces a string stable behavior on the vehicle platoon despite different dynamical models of the platoon members and the external disturbances acting on the systems. The proposed method estimates the controller coefficients on-line to adapt to the disturbances such as wind, changing road grade and also to different vehicle dynamic behaviors. The main purpose of all three controllers is to maintain the driving safety of connected vehicles in car-following and platooning while being real-time implementable. In addition, when there is a possibility for performance enhancement without sacrificing safety, ecological improvement is also considered. For each designed controller, Model-in-the-Loop (MIL) simulations and Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) experiments are performed using high-fidelity vehicle models in order to validate controllers' performance and ensure their real-time implementation capability

Online Control of Automotive systems for improved Real-World Performance

[ES] La necesidad de mejorar el consumo de combustible y las emisiones de los sistemas propulsivos de automoción en condiciones reales de conducción es la base de esta tesis. Para ello, se exploran dos ejes: En primer lugar, el control de los sistemas de propulsión. El estado del arte de control en los sistemas propulsivos de automoción se basa en gran medida en el uso de técnicas de optimización que buscan las leyes de control que minimizan una función de coste en un conjunto de condiciones de operación denidas a priori. Estas leyes se almacenan en las ECUs de producción en forma de mapas de calibración de los diferentes actuadores del motor. Las incertidumbres asociadas al conjunto limitado de condiciones en el proceso de calibración dan lugar a un funcionamiento subóptimo del sistema de propulsión en condiciones de conducción real. Por lo tanto, en este trabajo se proponen métodos de control adaptativo que optimicen la gestión de la planta propulsiva a las condiciones esperadas de funcionamiento para un usuario y un caso determinado en lugar de a un conjunto genérico de condiciones. El segundo eje se reere a optimizar, en lugar de los parámetros de control del sistema propulsivo, la demanda de potencia de este, introduciendo al propio conductor en el bucle de control, sugiriéndole las acciones a tomar. En particular, este segundo eje se reere al control de la velocidad del vehículo (conocido popularmente como Eco-Driving en la literatura) en condiciones reales de conducción. Se proponen sistemas de aviso en tiempo real al conductor acerca de la velocidad óptima para minimizar el consumo del vehículo. Los métodos de control desarrollados para cada aplicación se describen en detalle en la tesis y se muestran ensayos experimentales de validación en los casos de estudio diseñados. Ambos ejes representan un problema de control óptimo, denido por un sistema dinámico, unas restricciones a cumplir y un coste a minimizar, en este sentido las herramientas desarrolladas en la tesis son comunes a los dos ejes: Un modelo de vehículo, una herramienta de predicción del ciclo de conducción y métodos de control óptimo (Programación Dinámica, Principio Mínimo de Pontryagin y Estrategia de Consumo Equivalente Mínimo). Dependiendo de la aplicación, los métodos desarrollados se implementaron en varios entornos experimentales: un motor térmico en sala de ensayos simulando el resto del vehículo, incluyendo el resto del sistema de propulsión híbrido y en un vehículo real. Los resultados muestran mejoras signicativas en el rendimiento del sistema de propulsión en términos de ahorro de combustible y emisiones en comparación con los métodos empleados en el estado del arte actual.[CA] La necessitat de millorar el consum de combustible i les emissions dels sistemes propulsius d'automoció en condicions reals de conducció és la base d'aquesta tesi. Per a això, s'exploren dos eixos: En primer lloc, el control dels sistemes de propulsió. L'estat de l'art de control en els sistemes propulsius d'automoció es basa en gran manera en l'ús de tècniques d'optimització que busquen les lleis de control que minimitzen una funció de cost en un conjunt de condicions d'operació denides a priori. Aquestes lleis s'emmagatzemen en les Ecus de producció en forma de mapes de calibratge dels diferents actuadors del motor. Les incerteses associades al conjunt limitat de condicions en el procés de calibratge donen lloc a un funcionament subòptim del sistema de propulsió en condicions de conducció real. Per tant, en aquest treball es proposen mètodes de control adaptatiu que optimitzen la gestió de la planta propulsiva a les condicions esperades de funcionament per a un usuari i un cas determinat en lloc d'un conjunt genèric de condicions. El segon eix es refereix a optimitzar, en lloc dels paràmetres de control del sistema propulsiu, la demanda de potència d'aquest, introduint al propi conductor en el bucle de control, suggerint-li les accions a prendre. En particular, aquest segon eix es refereix al control de la velocitat del vehicle (conegut popularment com Eco-*Driving en la literatura) en condicions reals de conducció. Es proposen sistemes d'avís en temps real al conductor sobre la velocitat òptima per a minimitzar el consum del vehicle. Els mètodes de control desenvolupats per a cada aplicació es descriuen detalladament en la tesi i es mostren assajos experimentals de validació en els casos d'estudi dissenyats. Tots dos eixos representen un problema de control òptim, denit per un sistema dinàmic, unes restriccions a complir i un cost a minimitzar, en aquest sentit les eines desenvolupades en la tesi són comunes als dos eixos: Un model de vehicle, una eina de predicció del cicle de conducció i mètodes de control òptim (Programació Dinàmica, Principi Mínim de *Pontryagin i Estratègia de Consum Equivalent Mínim). Depenent de l'aplicació, els mètodes desenvolupats es van implementar en diversos entorns experimentals: un motor tèrmic en sala d'assajos simulant la resta del vehicle, incloent la resta del sistema de propulsió híbrid i en un vehicle real. Els resultats mostren millores signicatives en el rendiment del sistema de propulsió en termes d'estalvi de combustible i emissions en comparació amb els mètodes emprats en l'estat de l'art actual.[EN] The need of improving the real-world fuel consumption and emission of automotive applications is the basis of this thesis. To this end, two verticals are explored: First is the online control of the powertrain systems. In state-of-the-art Optimal Control techniques (such as Dyanmic Programming, Pontryagins Minimum Principle, etc...) are extensively used to formulate the optimal control laws. These laws are stored in the production ECUs in the form of feedforward calibration maps. The unaccounted uncertainities related to the real-world during the powertrain calibration result in suboptimal operations of the powertrain in actual driving. Therefore, adaptive control methods are proposed in this work which, optimise the energy management of the conventional and the HEV powertrain control on real driving mission. The second vertical is regarding the vehicle speed control (popularly known as Eco-Driving in the literature) methods in real driving condition. In particular, speed advisory systems are proposed for real time application on a vehicle. The control methods developed for each application are described in details with their verication and validation on the designed case studies. Apart from the developed control methods, there are three tools that were developed and used at various stages of this thesis: A vehicle model, A driving cycle prediction tool and optimal control methods (dynamic programming, PMP and ECMS). Depending on the application, the developed methods were implemented on the Hardware-In-Loop Internal Combustion Engine testing setup or on a real vehicle. The results show signicant improvements in the performance of the powertrain in terms of fuel economy and emissions in comparison to the state-of-the-art methods.Pandey, V. (2021). Online Control of Automotive systems for improved Real-World Performance [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/173716TESI