AN INTELLIGENT ELECTRICAL POWER MANAGEMENT STRATEGY FOR MILITARY VEHICLES

An efficient and collaborative process for the realization and implementation of an electrical power management strategy for a modern military vehicle is demonstrated. Power, software and hardware engineers working together and using simulation and emulation tools are able to develop, simulate and validate a power strategy before prototype vehicle integration, reducing integration cost and time. For demonstration, an intelligent electrical power management strategy is developed for a generic military vehicle with conventional engine/transmission propulsion and an inline generator. The challenge of this architecture is maintaining electrical bus stability/regulation at low engine speed given that electrical power demands may exceed power supplied. The intelligent electrical power management strategy presented limits the total power demand to power available by overriding the demands of the individual loads. Based on load prioritization and vehicle system dynamics, power limits are issued to the individual electrical load controllers. The collaboration process to develop, model, simulate, and validate this intelligent power management strategy is presented. In addition, the tools used to facilitate this collaboration; Mathworks Simulink/StateFlow/Real-Time Workshop and the Vehicle Electrical Power System Test-bed, are detailed.