A Review of Hybrid Electric Architectures in Construction, Handling and Agriculture Machines

Abstract

Recent regulations on pollutant emissions have pushed working machines manufacturers towards research and development efforts to meet the strict limits imposed. For a long time, the use of gas aftertreatment systems have been the most widely accepted solution to reduce the amount of pollutants produced per unit of work done. However, lower emissions limits lead to larger systems and consequently higher difficulties in vehicle integration. Thus, alternative solutions have been studied in the last years to solve the emissions problem using wisely the on-board space. Hybrid electric technologies represent a valuable alternative in this direction. In this work, a review of the current state of the art in the adoption of hybrid and electric technologies on working vehicles is proposed. Due to the high amount of application fields and concepts for special applications, the analysis focused on the three major fields which however includes most of the working machines: Construction, Handling and Agriculture. This work highlights how the requirements of each specific field, strongly affects the design of an optimal hybrid electric architectures.