Control strategies for hybrid vehicles: synthesis and evaluation

Control strategies for hybrid vehicles are algorithms that choose at each sampling time the power split between the engine and the motor. In simulation, a global optimization algorithm based on the optimal control theory (S. Delprat et al., Sept. 2002 and S. Delprat et al., June 2001) can compute the power split between the engine and the motor that minimizes the fuel consumption. Analyzing the results obtained by this algorithm allows formulating a new control strategy. Then, some criterions for the evaluation of real time control strategy are proposed. The key idea is to express the control strategy performance as the distance between the real time control strategy results and the minimal fuel consumption curve provided by the global optimization algorithm.