Experimental Verification of regenerative braking energy recovery system based on electric vehicle equipped with 2-speed DCT

Electric vehicles (EVs), as the most promising long term trend in environment friendly transportation, worldwide attracts significant amount of research. However the consumer acceptance of EVs is still restricted by the limited range in comparison to its counterpart-internal combustion engine vehicles. Energy recovery through regenerative braking, as an inherent advantage of EVs, is a feasible option to contribute to the alleviation of this problem by recuperating braking energy during braking. The motor recovers electric energy instead of dissipating heat when driver decelerates vehicle. There have also been many attempts at integrating various transmissions with EVs to extend the mileage and improve the performance of electric vehicle, but few have noticed that Dual Clutch Transmission (DCT) as a higher efficiency transmission system may be more suitable for EVs than other transmissions, especially with a simpler structure when only two speed ratios are utilised. In this paper, a regenerative braking system for Two-Speed Dual Clutch Transmission-based electric vehicles is proposed. Results from simulation and experiment validate that the proposed braking energy recovery system works efficiently on a Two-speed DCT based EV.