Control of a 36 Mode Hybrid Vehicle With Driver Option Selection: Incorporating Urban, Suburban, and Highway Driving

There is currently a high level of uncertainty surrounding the evolution of personal transportation. A variety of new types of vehicle powertrains have been proposed or implemented, including alternative fuels, hybrid electric vehicles, and fully electric vehicles. It is also possible, as shown by Mechtenberg [1], to combine multiple fuels and batteries to design this 36 mode hybrid vehicle. The hybrid vehicle presented here features multiple modes of operation with a wide range of possible combinations of fuel and battery usage. While the many degrees of freedom offered by this hybrid vehicle design present an opportunity to operate under a variety of different conditions, it also presents a control challenge, as the vehicle’s control system must decide how best to use the various modes available, given the driver’s optional selection and the current status of the vehicle. In this paper, we discuss the various modes of operation, degree of driver involvement in their selection, and automatic switching between various options. The optimal control is found for various different driving cycles, based on the objective of maximizing the efficiency of the powertrain, and it is shown that this type of hybrid vehicle can operate efficiently under a variety of different scenarios. This model is built upon Wagner and Papalambros’ engine optimization [2] and Ahn’s continuously variable transmission model [3].