Control Strategies for a Hybrid Electric-Combustion Powertrain Applied to a Test Bench

This paper presents the design and implementation of a test bench intended for the development and validation of control strategies applied to a hybrid-electric powertrain. The setup combines a 48 V SEG BRM electric machine with a small-displacement internal combustion engine (ICE), the HONDA GX160, operating in a parallel hybrid configuration. The platform was developed to improve energy efficiency in comparison to a conventional ICE-only system. Modifications were carried out on an existing test bench at Instituto Mauá de Tecnologia, including the fabrication of a new enclosure for the battery pack and its battery management system (BMS), as well as the integration of a Vector VN8911 real-time controller. A custom control strategy was implemented and experimentally evaluated using a predefined drive cycle under two conditions: (I) ICE-only operation and (II) hybrid-electric operation with the proposed strategy. Results showed a fuel consumption reduction of approximately 13% with the hybrid-electric configuration. The comparability of both tests was ensured by maintaining equivalent initial and final battery state of charge (SoC), allowing a fair assessment based solely on fuel consumption.