Design and Development of an In-Hub Motors Hybrid Vehicle for Military Applications

The paper focuses on the advantages of the diesel electric traction applied to military vehicles. In recent years electric cars developed mainly to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels and cut down the emissions. The reduction of fuel consumption, important for civil vehicles above all to reduce emissions and to lower costs, is important also for the military in order to increase vehicle autonomy. In addition, the interest for hybrid electric military vehicles is linked with vehicle packaging flexibility, on board power generation and stealth potential related to their abilities of silent movement. Among many possible layouts the optimum is considered to be hub mounted drive motors in each wheel [ 1 ].

This study shows the development of a demonstrator of an hybrid electric 4×4 military vehicle. It was carried out for a future extension of the technology to a 8×8 armoured vehicle. Starting from the general layout of the hybrid system all components of the demonstrator are described and the whole control logic is discussed.