Optimal Control of Hybrid Electric Vehicles

Abstract: Hybrid electric vehicles are considered to be an important part of the future vehicle industry, since they decrease fuel consumption without decreasing the performance compared to a conventional vehicle. They use two or more power sources to propel the vehicle, normally one combustion engine and one electric machine. These power sources can be arranged in different topologies and can cooporate in different ways. In this thesis, dynamic models of parallel and series hybrid powertrains are developed, and different strategies for how to control them are compared.An optimization algorithm for decreasing fuel consumption and utilize the battery storage capacity as much as possible is also developed, implemented and tested.