Concurrent Design of Energy Management and Vehicle Stability Algorithms for a Parallel Hybrid Vehicle using Dynamic Programming

In this paper, concurrent design of controllers for a vehicle equipped with a parallel hybrid powertrain is studied. Our work focuses on designing the two control algorithms, the energy management and the vehicle stability, concurrently which are traditionally considered separately. Dynamic Programming (DP) technique is used in order to obtain the optimal response trace for the controllers. In energy management strategy torque split ratio between engine and electric motor is used as a control signal. Additionally, in vehicle dynamics control strategy the torque split factor between front and rear axles is used as a control signal. Minimizing the fuel consumption and wheel slip is used as cost functions in energy management and vehicle dynamics control strategies respectively. Two dynamic problems are solved separately first and compared to the concurrent solution of the problems. Results show promising benefits can be obtained from the concurrent DP solution and rule extraction for designing better hybrid vehicle controllers.