Study of Supercapacitor Utilization on Regenerative Braking System: Design and Simulation

The development of electric vehicles and regenerative braking are dependent on energy storage development. Battery's low lifecycle always be a concern to be overcome which electric vehicle requires a charging and discharging cycle. The development of Hybrid Energy Storage System (HESS) is increasing, which combined the supercapacitor to a battery which has a high cycle life. In this paper, the HESS system and motor current driver controller are proposed. This system is to eliminate the charging current to the battery and surge battery current that can damage the battery. In this paper, the controller is designed for Mr. Jackie's Electric Bicycle that controls into four modes, starting, motoring and accelerating, braking, and supercapacitor charging. This system also tested with NYCC and UC/ECE driving behavior that represents the big city and the freeway driving behavior. The controller successfully follows the reference current. It found that the higher braking force is applied, the less efficient the system will be. However, it also found that the applied braking current is lower than a certain number, the system will be less efficient. The utilization of supercapacitor makes the Depth of Discharge of the battery is decreasing.