Optimal control based power management in hybrid military vehicle

With increasing costs for fuel and transportation logistics, there is a growing interest in improving fuel efficiency by employing hybrid drivetrain architecture and effective power management of multiple power sources (engine and battery). However, current ruled-based power management strategies fail to meet the rapidly increasing needs of military vehicles, including: (1) better fuel efficiency and (2) maintaining battery state of charge (SOC) for power offloading applications. In this paper, we propose an optimal control theory based power management solution such that: (1) all traction needs are met; (2) power drawn from the engine for specific mission is minimized, and (3) a certain desired battery state of charge (SOC) is guaranteed for offloading power. Our proposed approach is based on tools from optimization and control theory. The proposed approach is validated using simulation of a mission specific profile and is compared with two other popular control strategies. The improvement in power efficiency and desired SOC level are demonstrated.