Regenerative braking in a small low cost plug-in hybrid electric vehicle for urban use

This paper presents the design, the control and the experimental tests of an ultra-capacitor pack used as an energy storage system in a small hybrid electric vehicle. This design consists in calculating the capacitance and the power of the capacitors, which are necessary to store kinetic energy during deceleration of the vehicle and then to accelerate the vehicle. NEDC driving cycle is considered to achieve a realistic design. Then a simple control of the UC energy is proposed and it is validated with simulations using Portunus software. Finally, experimental tests are achieved to verify the design and the control of the UC pack in the real plug-in hybrid electric vehicle.