Supervisory controller for minimizing fuel consumption and NOx emissions of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles operating in zero-emission zones

This paper introduces a supervisory controller designed for Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) to minimize total energy consumption and tailpipe NOx emissions while adhering to Zero Emission Zone (ZEZ) constraints. The case study exploits historical driving cycle data from an urban bus route in Zurich to analyze trip correlations, where a ZEZ restriction was added to assess the vehicle performance under such conditions. A PHEV bus model was built, integrating the powertrain and After-Treatment System (ATS), where an electric heater is included to mitigate NOx emissions. The supervisory controller is tasked with determining the optimal power split and the electric heater power to ensure adherence to feasible operating conditions along the route. Historical driving cycle data analysis demonstrates that the speed profiles along the selected route exhibit similarities. This observation is leveraged by a Dynamic Programming (DP) optimization, where an arbitrary bus trip is employed to generate a cost-to-go matrix. Then, the resulting cos-to-go matrix was indexed by the position in the route and is used on the real-time controller by applying the one-step look-ahead roll-out algorithm. Simulation results demonstrate the controller effectiveness in addressing ZEZ restrictions, presenting a trade-off between energy consumption and tailpipe NOx emissions. A benchmark was carried out, comparing the results obtained with the DP solution as the baseline, assuming perfect knowledge of driving cycle disturbances, revealing a 7% increase in tailpipe NOx emissions and a 1.3% increase in fuel consumption compared to the theoretical minimum and fulfilling the ZEZ restrictions in all the cases.