Detailed Implementation of Hardware-In-the-Loop Validation of an Advanced Energy Management Controller for Power-Split HEVs

This brief will describe the entire process of setting up a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation platform required to validate the performances of any hybrid supervisory control strategy for hybrid electric vehicle (HEV)s. Performances of any new control strategy’ developed for an electrified powertrain’s energy management system (EMS) must be validated in the HIL platform to confirm its real-time applicability in an actual microcontroller. Setting up the HIL platform is not as trivial as developing a model-in-the-loop (MIL) platform on SIMULINK®, and it involves a handful of intricate technical steps. The HIL platform presented in this paper is curated with two primary elements, i.e., the vehicle plant model simulated in SI.MULINK® and the EMS embedded on dSPACE® MicroAutoBox II. This utilitarian paper streamlines the entire journey from a MIL to a HIL platform. Results corroborate the real-time implementation of a well-accredited supervisory control strategy, i.e., equivalent consumption minimization strategy (ECMS), for a commercially available HEV.