A New Regen-based Energy Management Strategy for Online Control of Hybrid Powertrains

The increasing necessity of manufacturing electrified vehicles also represent an increase in developing controllers that govern such powertrains. This paper uses the equivalent consumption minimization strategy (ECMS) method as the backbone of a novel approach named regen-based equivalent consumption minimization strategy (R-ECMS). The optimization-based algorithm accounts for the charge provided by the regenerative braking when computing the equivalent fuel cost. Although based on the ECMS, the R-ECMS does not share many of the usual limitations, such as having its performance constrained to drive cycles it is optimized for, and the necessity of having extra control rules for charge depletion situations. The results show that the R-ECMS method is more flexible and able to deliver charge sustaining and fuel efficient performances, which is key for plug-in hybrids. Besides, its fuel efficiency for the optimized case has shown to be slightly higher than the fuel efficiency achieved by the ECMS algorithm for the same optimized mission. Nonetheless, research on brake profile prediction must be conducted to allow leveraging the benefits of the R-ECMS algorithm in real applications.