High-Fidelity Modeling of a Power-Split Plug-In Hybrid Electric Powertrain for Control Performance Evaluation

Abstract

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) development seems to be essential for a sustainable transportation system along with electric vehicles. An appropriate power management strategy for a PHEV determines how to blend the engine and the battery power in such a way that leads to significant fuel economy improvement and environmental footprint reduction. To evaluate and validate the controls design, software and hardware-in-the-loop (SIL/HIL) simulations are useful approaches, especially at the early stages of controls design. To conduct SIL/HIL tests, an accurate and relatively fast mathematical model of the real powertrain is required which solely contains the essential dynamics of the plant. In this paper, a physics-based model of a power-split plug-in powertrain is developed and implemented using MapleSim software. This model contains a chemistry-based lithium-ion battery pack, which can distinguish it from other models used in the literature, since the performance of a PHEV greatly depends on its battery. The symbolic computation power of MapleSim makes the model very suitable for real-time SIL/HIL tests.