Control Strategy of Hybrid Electric Vehicle with Double Planetary Gear Sets

Hybrid Electric Vehicles with a power split system provide a variety of possibilities to promote the fuel economy of vehicles and better adapt to various driving conditions. In this paper, a new power split system of a hybrid electric bus which consists of double planetary gear sets and a clutch is introduced. The system is able to decouple both the torque and speed of the engine from the road load, which makes it possible for the engine to operate on its optimal operation line (OOL). Considering the features of the system configuration and bus driving cycle, the driving mode of the bus is divided into Electric Vehicle (EV) mode, Electric Variable Transmission (EVT) mode and Parallel mode. By controlling the engagement of the clutch at high vehicle speed (after the mechanical point), the system operates in the parallel mode rather than EVT mode. This avoids the problem that the system efficiency sharply declines in high speed region which EVT configurations are generally faced with. Accordingly, a control strategy based on the engine OOL is proposed and a corresponding co-simulation model on the platform of Matlab/Simulink and AVL/Cruise is established. The simulation results verify that the bus is able to cover the dynamic performance requirements under UDDS cycle and reaches a fuel consumption as low as 17.84L/100km.