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The interactions between automatic controls, physics, and driver is an important step towards highly automated driving. This study investigates the dynamical interactions between human-selected driving modes, vehicle controller and physical plant parameters, to determine how to optimally adapt powertrain control to different human-like driving requirements. A cyber-physical system (CPS) based framework is proposed for co-design optimization of the physical plant parameters and controller variables for an electric powertrain, in view of vehicle’s dynamic performance, ride comfort, and energy efficiency under different driving modes. System structure, performance requirements and constraints, optimization goals and methodology are investigated. Intelligent powertrain control algorithms are synthesized for three driving modes, namely sport, eco, and normal modes, with appropriate protocol selections. The performance exploration methodology is presented.

Thanks to the actuation flexibility of their systems, electric vehicles with individual powertrains, including in-wheel and on-board motors, are a very popular research topic amongst various types of electrified powertrain architectures. The introduction of the individual electric powertrain provides great capacity for improvement of the vehicle’s energy efficiency and control performance. However, it also poses tremendous challenges concerning vehicle safety, due to the complex system dynamics and cooperation mechanisms between multiactuators. For an electric vehicle with independently controlled motors, because of design and manufacturing factors, the steady-state error of each motor output torque, and the flexibilities and nonlinear backlash of left and right drivetrains, can be different. This results in asymmetrical output characteristics of electric powertrain systems on the same axle.

In this paper, gear ratios of a two-speed transmission system are optimized for an electric passenger car. Quasi static system models, including the vehicle model, the motor, the battery, the transmission system, and drive cycles are established in MATLAB/Simulink at first. Specifically, since the regenerative braking capability of the motor is affected by the SoC of battery and motors torque limitation in real time, the dynamical variation of the regenerative brake efficiency is considered in this study. To obtain the optimal gear ratios, iterations are carried out through Nelder-Mead algorithm under constraints in MATLAB/Simulink. During the optimization process, the motor efficiency is observed along with the drive cycle, and the gear shift strategy is determined based on the vehicle velocity and acceleration demand. Simulation results show that the electric motor works in a relative high efficiency range during the whole drive cycle.

As the main power source of the electric vehicle, the electric motor has outstanding characteristics including rapid response, accurate control and four-quadrant operation. Being introduced into the dynamic chassis control of electrified vehicles, the electric motor torque can be used not only for driving and regenerative braking during normal operating conditions, but also offers a great potential to improve the dynamic control performance of the anti-lock braking under emergency deceleration situations. This paper presents a robust control algorithm for anti-lock braking of a front-wheel-drive electric vehicle equipped with an axle motor. The hydraulic and regenerative braking system of the electric vehicle is modeled as a LPV (linear parameter varying) system. The nonlinearities of the control system are considered as uncertain parameters of a linear fractional transformation.

Regenerative braking provided by an electric powertrain is far different from conventional friction braking with respect to the system dynamics. During regenerative decelerations, the nonlinear powertrain backlash would excite driveline oscillations, deteriorating vehicle drivability and blended brake performance. Therefore, backlash compensation is worthwhile researching for an advanced powertrain control of electrified vehicles during regenerative deceleration. In this study, a nonlinear powertrain of an electric passenger car equipped with a central motor is modeled using hybrid system approach. The effect of powertrain backlash gap on vehicle drivability during regenerative deceleration is analyzed. To further improve an electric vehicle's drivability and blended braking performance, an active control algorithm with a hierarchical architecture is studied for powertrain backlash compensation.