Energy control for Plug-In HEV with

Ultracapacitors Lithium-Ion batteries storage system

for FIA Alternative Energy Cup Race
Ferdinando Luigi Mapelli Davide Tarsitano
Politecnico di Milano Politecnico di Milano
Mechanical Department Mechanical Department
via G. La Masa, 1 - 20156 Milan via G. La Masa, 1 - 20156 Milan
Email: ferdinando.mapelli@polimi.it Email: davide.tarsitano@mecc.polimi.it

Abstract—Since 2003 the Fédération Internationale de
L’automobile (FIA) has started an “Alternative Energies World
Cup”(FIA AEC) open to electric, hybrid and unconventional fuel
propelled vehicles. The winner of this kind of race, is the car
which cover an assigned distance, consuming less specific energy
referred to the weight of the vehicle [1], [2]. In June 2009 in
the Monza circuit took place a proof of 2009 FIA AEC World
Championship. Our research team participated to the race with
a Plug-In Hybrid Electrical Vehicle (PHEV) prototype previously
developed [3]. The race has been divided in four stages with an
assigned distance of 104 km each to be performed during two
days for a total distance of 416 km. The circuit has been divided
in three sectors, in order to emulate the typical vehicle operating
cycles: urban, suburban and freeway. For each sector an average
and a maximum speed has been assigned. The adopted PHEV
has been provided with data acquisition system able to collect
all power train data both electrical (battery voltage, current,
power and SOC) and mechanical (vehicle speed and position
on the track, throttle and brake pedal position, engine speed
and fuel consumption). The paper present an improvement of
vehicle performance on the race (reduce the equivalent energy
consumption) by means of an improvement of the Energy Storage
System (ESS) and the Energy Management System (EMS). The
analysis has been performed on a simulation model previously
validated [4] and updated with the proposed ESS and EMS.
Index Terms—Plug-in HEV, energy storage system, simulation
and modeling, ultracapacitors, Energy Management System.
battery [W h], mf is the total fuel consumption [kg], mv is
the vehicle mass [kg], Se is the fuel specific energy [W h/kg]
and d is the total covered distance [km].
 
ESSIE + Ench + mf · Se Wh
EEC = = (1)
d · mv kg · km
The main aim of the paper is to develop an energy storage
system combined with and energy control strategy in order to
reduce the EEC obtained during the race.
For this reason the ESS is improved to assure enough power
for performing full acceleration in all electric and for assuring
energy enough to cover the distance corresponding to the
urban drive cycle in a single race stage in battery charge
depletion mode. The purposed ESS combines Li-ion battery
(for the needed energy) with Ultra Capacitors (UCs) for the
required maximum power. For the present analysis, the internal
combustion engine and the electrical drive is maintained equal
to the vehicle prototype [3], [4]. The vehicle and power train
data are shown in Tab. I.
TABLE I
V EHICLE AND POWER TRAIN DATA

I. I NTRODUCTION Data Value

total vehicle mass 1437 kg
PHEV are designed to sustain an all-electric range of 30- ICE displacement 1200 cc
50 km and the correspondent battery package usually does Air penetration coefficient 0.33
ICE max power 53 kW
not have the peak power to assure a vehicle full acceleration ICE max speed 6500 rpm
performances. In fact the electrical power train of a PHEV ICE max torque 102 N m
is usually designed for a reduced performances in all-electric fuel gasoline
fuel specific energy Se 12100 W h/kg
for a city usage [5]. On the contrary in the FIA Alternative EM Rated power 10 kW
Energy Cup race could be useful to have, even on a PHEV, a EM Rated torque 33 N m
full performance electric drive train in order to save more fuel EM Overload 3.4 p.u.
EM Rated Voltage 105 V
and reduce the overall Equivalent Energy Consumption (EEC). EM Rated Current 70 A
In fact the electrical energy that is used for the vehicle motion, EM Rated efficiency 0.9 p.u.
that is delivered to the battery by the grid, has a low weigh EM Rated Speed 2980 rpm
EM Max. Speed 9000 rpm
in the EEC formula (1) where: ESSIE is the initial electrical EM pole number 4
energy, stored in battery and/or Ultra Capacitors [W h], Ench EM Cooling water
is the electrical energy delivered by the grid to charge the EM Control IGBT-Inverter Vector Control
 TABLE II
The adopted control strategy is heuristic rule based with ESS DATA
Static Thresholds [6] since the circuit drive cycle is well
known from experimental measurements. Data Original EES New EES Unit
Battery technology Li-Ion Li-Po
Battery energy 11 7.7 kWh
II. P-HEV SIMULATION MODEL Battery peak power 30 20 kW
A full energetic vehicle simulation model has been intro- Battery rated voltage 220 220 V
Battery weight 100 50 kg
duced and validated in previous papers [3], [4]. The model S-Cap capacitance − 25 F
has been developed using an objected-oriented approach, in S-Cap energy − 91 Wh
order to have a modular structure [7]. All the different vehicle S-Cap peak power − 110 kW
S-Cap max voltage − 162 V
and power train components have been modeled by blocks S-Cap weight − 17 kg
interconnected with signals. In this way it is very simply to
modify only one single block such as the ESS or the EMS
maintaining unchanged the remaining parts of the model. The
simulation model include all the drive train components such
as: driver, vehicle control system, lithium battery with UCs,
inverter and electric motor, gear box, ICE motor, fuel tank,
auxiliary on board electrical loads and longitudinal dynamic
of the vehicle.

Fig. 2. Energy Storage System General Scheme

IV. H EURISTIC CONTROL STRATEGY WITH S TATIC

Fig. 1. The PHEV prototype during the FIA AEC race
III. T HE U LTRACAPACITORS L I -I ON BATTERY E NERGY
S TORAGE S YSTEM
The original Energy Storage System (EES) was composed
only by lithium ion batteries. The new EES has been designed
considering:
• the needing of energy to cover the distance correspondent
to the city drive cycle for one race stage driven in all
electric (16 km);
• the needing of power to perform a full acceleration in all
electric (30 kW);
• the capability to recover a pulse of power during fast
breaking operations.
The designed EES includes LiPo batteries, Ultra Capacitors
(UCs) package, buck boost converter and inductor filter and
is shown in Fig. 2. The scheme is based only on one buck-
boost converter connected to the UCs [8]. The voltage value
on UCs is always lower than battery one. Data of the original
and of the improved ESS are shown in Tab. II. The sizing
process has been based on experimental data collected during
the race and the prototype vehicle parameters, considering also
the available space on board.
T HRESHOLDS FOR PHEV
The energy management system based on heuristic control
with static threshold is very easy to implement, test and adjust
even during a race. For these reasons the mentioned method
has been chosen for the simulation analysis. More complex
strategy such as Equivalent Fuel Consumption Minimization or
Fuzzy Logic Control [9] can produce better result but could be
more complex to be adjusted experimentally especially during
a car race.
For the original ESS the control strategy is described in
[6] and it is based on a Start&Stop control strategy with a
fixed speed threshold for switch between the electrical and
the thermal propeller and vice versa. For the new ESS the
control strategy is rule-based and it can be designed studying
the past race experience and the experimental acquired data.
A simple set of rules [6], [10] based on the driver torque
request, on the vehicle speed, on the SOC of batteries and
on the SOE of supercapacitors, is described in Fig. 3 and
summarized as follow:
• if vehicle’s speed v is below a certain threshold (vt ) only
electric drive traction is used (All Electric Mode -AE
mode-);
• if vehicle’s speed v is above a defined threshold only
the ICE is used for traction, even if it is not capable to
supply the torque demanded by the driver, but braking
operation is operated by electrical drive until UCs SOE
and battery SOC are smaller than two values SOEmax
and SOCmax ;
• during AE mode if the traction power demand P d exceed
 Fig. 3. Energy Control Flow Chart

the battery maximum deliverable power Pblim the UCs circles that indicate the three circuit sector, respectively urban,
system fills the gap until the SOE is smaller than a suburban and freeway.
minimum values SOEmin , otherwise power demand is
Speed
limited to Plim ; 100

• during ICE mode if the fuel consumption ṁf uel exceeds 90

its maximum value ṁf uel−max (depending on the vehicle 80
position on the track) the power demand for the ICE 70
motor is limited to ṁf uel−max ·LHV ; the electrical drive,
Speed [ km/h ]

60
fed by UCs, fills the gap until the SOE is higher than its
50
minimum value;
40
• during electric braking operation, both in AE mode and
ICE mode, if UCs SOE and battery SOC are both grater 30

than maximum tolerable values SOEmax and SOCmax 20

only mechanical braking is enabled. 10

The values of the thresholds have been tuned in order to
reduce the EEC for a single lap and for the whole race stage of
100 km. In particular for the transition from AE mode to ICE
mode the threshold has been set at 65 km/h and for the opposite
transion at 57 km/h; this hysteresis bandwidth is necessary to
avoid continuous change of driving mode. The battery power
limit value Plim (d) is adjusted over the circuit distance to
assure to maintain the SOE of UCs constant over a single lap.
V. S IMULATION A NALYSIS
A. Simulation of a single lap
A single lap drive cycle length 5.79 km has been adopted
for the first simulation analysis. The drive cycle corresponds to
the experimental one recorded during the race and it is shown
in Fig. 4. On the time axis of the plot are visible three black
0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Time [s]
Fig. 4. Vehicle lap performances
The control strategy and the described EMS has been
implemented in the simulation model that receives as input
the mentioned drive cycle and gives as outputs all power train
and energy storage component variables. The data obtained
by numerical simulation has been compared with the data
collected during the race for the same chosen lap. During the
race the prototype vehicle was equipped with only lithium
ion battery and a simple energy control [6]. In Fig. 5 are
compared the global performances of the on board storage
systems (chemical, electrochemical and electrostatic).
In particular in Fig. 5(a) is shown the comparison between
the instant ICE fuel consumption during the race with the old
 −3 Fuel flow on a lap Power repartitio and SOC/SOE during a lap
x 10
6 30

Power [kW]
20
Fuel flow [ l/s ]

10
4
0
−10
2 0 50 100 150 200 250
72
0 Old ESS − battery

SOC [%]
0 50 100 150 200 250 71 New ESS − battery
New ESS − supercap
Fuel cumulate consumption on a lap 70
0.4
69
Fuel consumpted [l]

Old ESS 0 50 100 150 200 250

0.3 New ESS
100
0.2

SOE [%]
80
0.1 60

0 40
0 50 100 150 200 250 0 50 100 150 200 250
Time [s] Time [s]

(a) Fuel consumption on a single lap

Fig. 6. Power repartition and ESS variables comparison

ESS Current and Voltage on a single lap

150 TABLE III
S INGLE L AP S IMULATION R ESULTS
100
Current [ A ]

50
Old ESS New ESS [unit]
0 Fuel Consumption 0.384 0.364 l
−50 Battery Energy consumption 173 227 Wh
−100 S-Cap Energy Consumption - 1.6 Wh
Wh
−150 Total EEC 0.417 0.398 kg km
0 50 100 150 200 250
Total EEC reduction - 4.55 %

250

by the charging process efficiency. The comparison is referred

Voltage [ V ]

Old EES − battery

200
150
0 50
(b) ESS performances on a single lap
Fig. 5.
ESS (green line) with the simulated one (red line) for the
purposed ESS and EMS.
Instead in Fig. 5(b) it is shown the current repartition
between the two electrical storage system, their operational
voltage and the normalized quantity of energy available,
respectively SOC and SOE.
In Fig. 6 it is pointed out the power sharing between
electric motor and ICE and between battery and UCs and the
corresponding SOC and SOE values. As it is possible to see
the new configuration allows to reach the same peak of power,
with respect to the old EES, by the sum of the power provided
by battery and UCs.
In Tab. III is reported the numerical comparison between
the race data and the proposed solution.
It is noticeable a reduction of single lap fuel consumption
and a reduction of more than 4, 5% of lap referred EEC.This
value has been evaluated considering only lap fuel consump-
tion and lap energy from battery and UCs reported to the grid
New EES − battery to a lap with battery initial SOC level equal to 71, 50%. In
New EES − supercap
this conditions kinetic energy recovery is always praticable for
both system (the prototype and the new one). At the beginning
100 150 200 250 of the first race stage the battery is fully charged and the
Time [s] recovery of braking energy is possible only in the proposed
ESS since the UCs can be used in order to store this energy.
For this reason the fuel saved and the EEC with the new
Vehicle lap performances
configuration will be more appreciable on the whole stage
and race. The complete race simulation results are discussed
in the following paragraph.
B. Simulation of the full race
As first a simulation on the first stage race has been
performed. In the upper part of Fig. 7 it is shown SOC trend
for the old ESS, composed only by Li-Ion battery; in the lower
part of the same figure it is shown SOC and SOE trends for
the new ESS composed by Li-Po battery and UCs.
This simulation allows to evaluate benefits of the new ESS
on a full stage and in particular on the first part of the stage,
where the old one couldn’t recover energy in order to preserve
battery life.
The consequent analysis has been carried out on a complete
race simulation. In these simulation the drive cycle used as
reference for the numerical simulator is the one recorded on
Monza FIA race run.
In Fig. 8 it is shown the full race energetic trends on the
two different ESSs.
 Start of race Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 Total [unit]
Fuel Consumption 6, 93 6, 17 6, 05 5, 53 24, 70 l
Battery Energy consumption 3, 66 4, 14 3, 89 3, 81 15, 52 kW h
ESSIE 11 0 0 0 0 11 kW h
Ench 1, 52 3, 14 2, 57 0 7, 2 kW h
mf · Se 61, 62 54, 82 53, 75 49, 19 219, 4 kW h
Total energy 237, 6 kW h
Total EEC 0, 393 W h/kg/km
(a) Old EES

Start of race Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 Total [unit]

Fuel Consumption 6, 64 5, 91 5, 78 5, 38 23, 74 l
Battery Energy consumption 4, 48 4, 83 4, 74 4, 23 18, 28 kW h
ESSIE 7, 5 0 0 0 0 7, 5 kW h
Ench 2, 54 2, 54 2, 54 0 7, 6 kW h
mf · Se 59, 05 52, 54 51, 37 47, 86 210, 8 kW h
Total energy 226, 0 kW h
Total EEC 0, 374 W h/kg/km
(b) New EES
TABLE IV
T OTAL RACE PERFORMANCES

Old ESS Old ESS battery energy trends on the full race
100
10
Battery SOC [%]
Energy [kWh]

90 8
6
80
4
70
2
60 0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 0 1 2 3 4 5

New ESS New ESS battery energy trends on the full race
100
Battery SOC [%] 8
UCs SOE [%]
Energy [kWh]

80 6

4
60
2

40 0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 0 1 2 3 4 5
Time [s] Time [h]

Fig. 7. SOC and SOE trends on the first race stage Fig. 8. Full race energy trends

In Tab. IV are reported all the necessary data in order to
evaluate the EEC of the original prototypal vehicle with only
lithium ion battery and the new one with the enhanced on
board storage system.
The comparison of Tab. IV(a) and (b) shows a total EEC
reduction among the full race simulation. Furthermore the
comparison of the two table shows an higher value of energy
consumption for the new on board storage system: this is
mainly due to the fact that the kinetic energy is recovered into
UCs instead that into the battery during braking operation.
VI. C ONCLUSION
The paper presents an improved ESS and EMS for a
PHEV prototype in order to reduce the EEC for competing
in FIA Alternative Energy Car Race. All the simulations have
been performed on the basis of the experimental drive cycle
recorded on a real race. The comparison of the energetic index
have also been performed with respect to the real race ones.
The solution adopted to improve the prototype ESS is based
Li-Po Battery and UCs with one Buck-Boost converter.
Simulation results demonstrate that is possible to reduce the
fuel consumption over a complete race of about 5%. This value
has been obtained comparing the Equivalent Energy Consump-
tion (EEC) evaluated on a complete race for the prototype,
equipped only with Li-Ion battery, and the simulation reasults,
obtained considering the prototypal vehicle equipped with Li-
Po battery and UCs.
The enhanced Energy Storage System and its Energy Man-
agement System has been studied for FIA Alternative Energy
Cup Race: the benefits achievable on a urban drive cycle have
still to be evaluated. After this analysis is possible to proceed
on the DC/DC converter design and on experimental tests.
 Acronym and Symbols Extended
HEV Hybrid Electrical Vehicle
P-HEV Plug-in Hybrid Electrical Vehicle
SOC Battery State Of Charge
SOE Ultra-Capacitors State Of Energy
ESS Energy Storage System
EEC Equivalent Energy Consumption
EM Electrical Motor
EMS Energy Management System
AER All Electric Range
AEMode All Electric drive Mode
ICEMode Internal Combustion Engine Mode
UCs ultracapacitors
PED electrical drive input power
Pbatt Battery output power
PBR mechanical brake power
PICE ICE output power
PSC ultra-cap output power
LHV Lower heating value

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