Mechanism and Machine Theory 133 (2019) 1–22

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Mechanism and Machine Theory

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mechmachtheory

Research paper

Gearshift and brake distribution control for regenerative

braking in electric vehicles with dual clutch transmission
Jiejunyi Liang, Paul D. Walker, Jiageng Ruan∗, Haitao Yang, Jinglai Wu,
Nong Zhang
Faculty of Engineering and IT, University of Technology Sydney, 15 Broadway, Ultimo, NSW 2007, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: To alleviate the problem of limited driving range per charge in electric vehicles, a dual
Received 21 March 2018 clutch transmission based regenerative braking power-on shifting control system is pro-
Revised 3 July 2018
posed and investigated in this paper. Power-on shifting refers to the shift process where
Accepted 16 August 2018
the power flow between the wheel and the power source is not cut off and could be
Available online 15 November 2018
maintained around a desirable value. This character is more important for regenerative
Keywords: braking than the normal driving conditions as the regenerative braking force from the mo-
Electric vehicle tor accounts for a large part of the total braking force. Due to the difference between
Multispeed transmission the normal driving condition and the regenerative braking process, existing normal driving
Regenerative braking shifting control strategies, which could introduce significant torque interruption, cannot be
Shifting control directly applied for regenerative braking. As a result, the energy recovery capability and
Efficiency efficiency are compromised. To solve this problem, a power-on shifting control strategy
for regenerative braking is proposed as well as an energy-safety oriented braking strat-
egy. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system, mathematical models are
built and dynamic responses of the transmission system during braking both in up-shift
and down-shift processes are presented. Moreover, the efficiency and recovery capability
improvements made by achieving power-on shifting during regenerative braking are veri-
fied through a typical deceleration driving cycle and a specially designed daily deceleration
scenario.
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

With the ownership of vehicles increased rapidly and the exacerbating problems of fossil energy over-consumption and
polluted air, the designing and manufacturing of more efficient and greener vehicles have attracted worldwide attention.
Therefore, in-depth and comprehensive investigations [1–3] have been made to make the most of conventional vehicles
and design new types of pure electric vehicles (EV), hybrid electric vehicles (HEV), and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV).
Although the related emerging problems such as motor efficiency, energy management strategies and the associated control
systems have been significantly alleviated, the long-lasting problem of low battery energy and power density still prevent
the battery based electric vehicles from dominating the market [4]. As a result, together with the limited battery life, high
initial cost, relatively long charging time and limited driving range per charge, the large-scale commercialization of battery
based electric vehicles is hindered [5,6].

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jiageng.ruan@uts.edu.au (J. Ruan).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mechmachtheory.2018.08.013
0094-114X/© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 J. Liang et al. / Mechanism and Machine Theory 133 (2019) 1–22

To alleviate this problem, detailed investigation has been made in [7] to analyze the energy consumption distribution
in different driving cycles. The results reveal that, in general, about 42% of energy is consumed in rolling, 25% wasted in
the form of heat during deceleration, 23% by airdrag and 10% in other forms. As the consumed energy in rolling cannot
be notably reduced and the energy wasted by airdrag depends on the shape of vehicles, the kinetic energy during braking
becomes the focus of researchers [8]. If the kinetic energy could be recaptured and transformed into electrical energy stored
in the battery again during braking, the driving range per charge and the overall efficiency would be significantly improved
[9].
In a normal driving condition, the energy of an electric vehicle flows in the same path as conventional vehicles from the
motor to the driving wheel through gearbox, including the fixed single gear ratio, to the driving axle. During regenerative
braking, as the electric motor could also work in generating mode, the driving axle then would work as a braking axle
exerting regenerative braking torque and driving the generator, where the conventional vehicles could only use friction
plates to decelerate [10].
In regenerative braking, system design, brake strategy and efficiency improvement are of most importance [11]. As most
successful electric vehicle models such as Prius, Leaf and Model S, are designed to be driven by axle motors [12,13], both re-
generative brakes and friction brakes should be adopted to work individually or together. The motor-supplied braking torque
is applied to the wheels in a entirely different way compared with conventional friction plates and will cause complicated
effects such as wheel slip and locking, vehicle body bounce and braking distance variation [7]. Therefore, the cooperation
between them is critical to guarantee the driving safety and the vehicle longitudinal dynamics stability and has attracted
considerable attention [14]. For commercialized electric vehicles, the regenerative braking system will be disabled when
emergency situation happens and the hydraulic brakes with the advanced vehicle body control systems take over [15]. Al-
though this application could adequately control the dynamic performance of the vehicle and guarantee the safety, it cannot
fully utilize the possible recoverable energy.
As the dynamic performance of electric motors are relatively higher than that of internal combustion engines, the need
for a large number of gear ratios of electric vehicles is not as necessary as that of conventional vehicles [16]. However, the
most commonly used single fixed gear ratio transmission, which is mainly a compromise between manufacturing cost and
performance, or multispeed transmission but remaining unchanged during braking, still compromises the performance of
the regenerative system. In order to achieve the desired functionality, increase the capabilities of regenerative braking and
improve the energy recovery efficiency, multispeed transmission system is imperative [17]. There are three main reasons,
firstly, the traction torque on the wheel is jointly determined by the motor and the current gear ratio, as a result, the peak
regenerative brake torque could be amplified by choosing a lower gear, achieving greater energy recovery capability with
enhanced braking ability. Secondly, the maximum recoverable braking energy is strongly depending on the instantaneous
motor efficiency and the associated control strategy, the more the available gear ratios are, the more energy could be re-
covered. Thirdly, the maximum available torque of a motor is against its speed when the speed is relatively high, if there is
only one gear ratio, the regenerative ability in high speed will be significantly reduced. However, the drawbacks of adopting
multispeed transmission should also be addressed. First, the overall weight of transmission system will be increased. Second,
the transmission efficiency could be slightly reduced. Third, the manufacturing cost will be higher. Last but most important,
the possible torque interruption will endanger the driver during regenerative braking [18].
The two major difficulties in designing efficient and reliable multispeed regenerative system are the design of the trans-
mission architecture and the associated control strategy guaranteeing the drivability and reliable gear shifting and maintain-
ing smooth driving experience [19]. As to the architecture, many investigations [20–22] have been made for EV in normal
driving condition. However, the functionality requirements in regenerative braking are different that most of the designs
cannot be directly applied [23]. Power-on shifting is more important in regenerative braking than in normal driving con-
dition as torque interruption during shifting will only cause vehicle jerk and extend the acceleration time during normal
driving. However, it could cause serious accident in braking because of the absence of braking torque. Many researchers
have been focused on the control strategy in normal driving conditions [24–26], but rarely on gearshift during regenerative
braking [27]. In [25], the torque interruption problem in a two speed planetary system is solved by a brake-type actuator
based control strategy. Two motors are employed in a three speed powertrain with one-way clutches to avoid the use of
friction elements and achieve torque hole compensation [28]. For DCT system, closed loop control is adopted to coordinate
the speed of the engine and the torque of the clutch [29]. Blended braking strategies are investigated in [30] to ensure the
operation safety of vehicles while maximizing the recovery of energy.
Considering all the aforesaid factors, a DCT based transmission system with its control strategy is proposed to improve
the overall efficiency, achieving power-on gearshift by designing adequate shifting control during braking and guarantee
braking safety with an advanced blended brake mode control strategy. During the construction of the model, systematical
methods are adopted to properly choose the motor, the gear number and the corresponding gear ratios which have a con-
siderable influence on the performance of the system [31]. To achieve power-on gearshift, both torque and inertia phases
during shifting are considered and the delivery of negative friction torque through the clutches during the inertia phase is
primarily investigated. The most important consideration here is that these two phases can be interchanged to ensure that
positive friction torque maintains driving load to the road as the prime mover (engine or motor) changes speed to the new
gear ratio. Conceptually, in a typical regenerative braking shift, two algorithms named speed control and torque control need
to be designed. The critical factor in developing these two shift algorithms is the consideration of the negative motor torque.
As this is the reverse of the driving load, it should be expected that the direction of friction torque during the inertia and
 J. Liang et al. / Mechanism and Machine Theory 133 (2019) 1–22 3

Fig. 1. Proposed transmission structure.

torque phases of shifting must be reversed to match the desired torque direction. This factor has implications for both up
and down shifts during regenerative braking events [32].
The remaining sections are organized as follows: In Section 2, a detailed powertrain system establishment process from
the motor power rating to the gear number and ratio choosing with corresponding shifting strategy is presented. In order
to achieve power-on shifting during regenerative braking, a power-on shifting control algorithm is proposed in Section 3.
Section 4 introduces a energy-safety regenerative braking strategy to both maximize the overall efficiency and guarantee the
driving safety. The performance of the proposed system is demonstrated in Section 5 and conclusions are drawn in the last
section.

2. Powertrain system modeling

In this section, a full size sedan powertrain model is systematically built with SimDriveline as the energy consumption
of this kind of vehicles is much higher than that of small size vehicles and the influence of the efficiency improvements
will be more significant. The proposed front wheel drive powertrain configuration is shown in Fig. 1, and the corresponding
detailed vehicle characteristics are noted in the following subsections.

2.1. Motor power rating

A compatible power source which is crucial in designing the powertrain system should provide enough power to ensure
the acceleration performance, maximum speed and lift the overall efficiency. The specifications of the electric motor and
the transmission system heavily rely on the performance requirements. Table 1 shows the specifications of a generalized
commercial full size vehicle.
Three specifications which are the acceleration performance, the gradeability and the maximum cruising speed should
be considered while choosing a proper motor. However, it turns out that if the motor could meet the requirement of the ac-
celeration performance, it could also satisfy the gradeability and the maximum cruising speed requirements. As a result, the
acceleration performance in a certain duration is adopted as the criteria. The relation between the acceleration performance
and the motor rating can be decided as [33]

(Vt2 + Vi2 )M̄ 2M̄g frVt ρCd AVt3

PM = + + (1)
2Tt 3 5
4 J. Liang et al. / Mechanism and Machine Theory 133 (2019) 1–22

Table 1
The specifications of the proposed full size sedan.

Symbol Value Unit

Vehicle mass M̄ 2300 kg

Front area A 2.58 m2
Tyre radius rt 0.35 m
Rolling coefficient fr 0.016
Air density ρ 1.127 kg/m3
Air drag coefficient Cd 0.32

Table 2
Electric motor specifications.

Value Unit

Motor peak power 100 kW

Max torque 300 Nm
Max speed 13,0 0 0 rpm
Base speed 30 0 0 rpm
Top speed 170 km/h
Max climbing angle 50 %

Fig. 2. Efficiency map for the selected electric motor.

where PM is the motor power rating, Vt and Vi are the target vehicle speed and initial vehicle speed, respectively. Tt is the
time taken to accelerate from the initial speed to the target speed, M̄ is the gross mass of the vehicle and fr is the rolling
friction coefficient. For the air drag, ρ represents the air density, Cd is the air drag coefficient and A represents the front
area.
Speed ratio is another important parameter choosing the motor as it is the ratio between the maximum speed and the
base speed of the motor. In this study, for the investigated full size sedan, the ratio is set to 4.3 to achieve the balance
between the vehicle dynamic performance and the motor power rating. Substitute the vehicle specifications to Eq. (1) and
set the duration for the vehicle to accelerate from the initial vehicle speed 0 km/h to the target vehicle speed 100 km/h
within 10 s, the estimated motor power rating could be calculated. Table 2 shows the specifications of the electric motor.
The efficiency map for the selected electric motor is shown in Fig. 2.

2.2. Gear ratio selection

The wheel torque and the overall efficiency are largely determined by the characteristics of the electric motor and the
corresponding gear ratios [34] which can be expressed as
γ = inputspeed/out putspeed (2)
As the maximum available traction force is the product of motor torque and gear ratio, a appropriate selection of gear ratio
will entitle the vehicle to the capabilities of fast acceleration and desirable gradeability. Due to the merits of electric motors
compared with conventional engines, the overall ratio range for electric vehicles could be smaller than that of conventional
vehicles, which can be expressed as
 
ρCd AV 2
γA = rt M̄g( fr cosα + sinα ) + /TM η pt (3)
2
 J. Liang et al. / Mechanism and Machine Theory 133 (2019) 1–22 5

Table 3
Designed gear ratios for multispeed transmission systems.

1st gear 2nd gear 3rd gear 4th gear Final gear

2-speed transmission 4.714 2.106 3.076

3-speed transmission 4.714 3.143 2.106 3.076
4-speed transmission 4.714 3.143 2.106 1.667 3.076

where γ A is the largest overall gear ratio, which includes the final differential, decided according to the acceleration capa-
bility, α represents the climbing performance, TM is the motor torque and ηpt is the transmission efficiency.
As the maximum ratio is determined by the traction requirement, the minimum gear ratio γ S , which can be achieved
by engaging the highest gear, can be constrained by the maximum designed vehicle speed and can be expressed as
γS ≤ 3.6π rt nMmax /30Vmax (4)
where nMmax is the maximum electric motor speed measured in rpm and Vmax is the desired top vehicle speed measured in
km/h. γ S also cannot be too small as the motor has to provide enough torque to offset the resistance caused by the rolling
resistance and the air drag at the top vehicle speed. The constraint is as
 
ρCd AV 2
γmin ≥ rt M̄g( fr cosα + sinα ) + /TMmax η pt (5)
2
where TMmax is the available maximum torque at the top cruising speed.
Substitute the designed specifications in Tables 1 and 2 in the Eqs. (3)–(5), the gear ratio range for the full size sedan
can be expressed as

γA ≥ 12.1
γS ≤ 10.1 (6)
γmin ≥ 4.4
By investigating the relationship between acceleration ability, top cruising speed, gradeability and the gear ratios, the ad-
vantages of multispeed transmission for electric vehicle can be revealed. For single speed transmission, it has to compromise
between the powertrain cost, by controlling the size of the motor, and the vehicle dynamic performance. As a comparison,
the ratio for a fixed single gear is selected the same as the mass production Tesla, which has a similar specification to the
studied vehicle in this article.

γSingle,g = 2.7
γSingle,di f = 3.61 (7)
γSingl e,overal l = 9.7
As different gear state is designed for different performance purpose, the intermediate gear ratios can be determined by
⎧
⎨γn
⎪ ϕ1(z−n) ϕ20.5(N−n)(N−n−1)
= γN
ϕ1 = N−1 1
n
ϕ20.5(N−n)(N−n−1) total
(8)
⎪
⎩σ
total = γγN1

where the subscripts n and N are for the current gear and the total gear number respectively. ϕ 1 is the gear ratio gap
between two adjacent gears and ϕ 2 is for the progression factor. σ total represents the ratio between the largest and smallest
gear ratio. Normally, the range for ϕ 1 is from 1.1 to 1.7 and the range for ϕ 2 is 1 to 1.2 [34].
The specific maximum and minimum gear ratios selected in this study is similar with the real DCT products on market
[35], at the same time, sitting in the above defined range. Table 3 shows the calculated gear ratios for 2-speed, 3-speed and
4-speed transmission systems.
It can be seen that the overall gear ratio range for the 4-speed transmission is from 5.12 to 14.5 which is wider than the
2-speed and 3-speed transmissions. Moreover, it has all the gear ratios owned by the other two transmissions. As a result,
the 4-speed transmission system could be more adaptive. Another reason that 4-speed transmission is better is that the
gear gaps in controlled in a limited range which will guarantee the driving comfort [34].
One of the most significant disadvantages of implementing multispeed transmission systems is the increased parasitic
efficiency losses presented through clutches, gear mesh and so on [36]. Although only one pair of gears is activated by
engaging the corresponding synchronizer at a time, the other inactive pairs are also still connected and rotate with the shaft
without transmitting torques. The losses from different components can be summarized as follows for a rapid assessment
[5].

a) Differential ∼ 5%
b) Single gear ratio friction loss 1% (only the gear pair under load)
c) Single gear ratio viscous loss 1% (each gear pair spinning in lubricant)
6 J. Liang et al. / Mechanism and Machine Theory 133 (2019) 1–22

Table 4
Transmission efficiencies for multispeed transmission systems.

1-speed 2-speed 3-speed 4-speed

Transmission efficiency 0.93 0.88 0.85 0.82

Table 5
Efficiency comparisons between different gear numbers.

Single-speed 2-speed 3-speed 4-speed

Consumed energy (kW·h) 7.266 6.979 6.7 6.467

Improvements achieved 0% 3.94% 7.78% 10.99%

d) Wet clutch losses 2 ∼ 3%

e) Synchronizer mechanism 1 ∼ 2%
The changes from the single speed ratio to 2-speed will be most significant around 4–5%, and will be 2–3% adding one
more gear ratio. Although adding more gear ratios is likely to unleash the full potential of the motor, the accompanied
transmission weight and driveline losses from the idle gears and the corresponding drags should be considered [37]. Table
(4) shows the calculated transmission efficiencies of driveline for different gear numbers.

2.3. Shifting schedules

Gear shift schedule during regenerative braking is critical in improving the overall efficiency and has been thoroughly
investigated by many researchers. As the main focus of this paper is not to propose an advanced shifting schedule but to
improve the efficiency and drivability by achieving gear shifting during regenerative brake, a robust and effective heuristic
method [38] by calculating the intersection points between two adjacent gear ratios, which will achieve both the overall
efficiency and the stability, has been adopted to generate the schedule [39,40]. In order to achieve a desirable efficiency
performance, the efficiency map of the selected electric motor and the calculated gear ratios are considered and the corre-
sponding gear shift schedules for different gear numbers are shown in Fig. 3. The red solid lines in each figure represent
the up-shift thresholds during regenerative braking under certain brake positions and speeds, and the blue dotted lines are
for the down-shifts. It should be noted that up-shifts during regenerative braking rarely happen in actual scenarios because
the speed should rise for an up-shift while braking. The only situation for this kind of shift is a downhill scenario where
the brake is slightly pressed and the speed of the vehicle will still rise due to the slope. Moreover, this shift schedule is
only adopted when the brake demand is not aggressive because when the brake demand is bigger than the regenerative
brake capacity in the current gear, downshift will automatically happen according to the proposed braking strategy which
is described in Section 4 to improve the regenerative braking force.
To demonstrate the regenerative braking improvement brought by the adoption of multispeed transmission system, the
traction load on the wheel Ft can be calculated as
Ft = PMmax η pt /V (9)
where PMmax is the maximum power of the motor. Adhesion limit, which constrain the possible transmitted force between
the wheels and the road, and the maximum traction load are other two key factors in analyzing the regenerative braking
performance. The adhesion limit can be calculated as
fa = M̄gκw μts (10)
where κ w is the weight distribution factor [41] and μts is the tire static friction coefficient. Fig. 4 shows the traction capacity
curves for the 4-speed transmission system through multiplication of the motor torque capacity and the gear ratios, noting
that the traction curves for other transmissions can also be found in the figure according to the specific gear ratios. It can
be seen that the maximum available braking torque has been considerably increased and by the higher gear ratios like the
first gear and the available torque range against high vehicle speed has also be extended.

2.4. Proposed transmission system

As the overall efficiency is mainly decided by normal driving efficiency other than the regenerative braking efficiency and
the gear number and ratio optimization for normal driving will always result in a better regenerative braking efficiency, a
combined driving cycle consisting of NEDC, LA92, HWFET and UDDS is adopted here to decide the gear number of the pro-
posed structure. The designed four transmission systems with different gear number are tested with the combined driving
cycle and the results are shown in Table 5.
In the combined driving cycle testing, both the efficiency of the mechanical system and the dynamic efficiency of the
motor are taken in to consideration. It can be seen that the 4-speed structure has the best efficiency performance among
all the proposed structures.
 J. Liang et al. / Mechanism and Machine Theory 133 (2019) 1–22 7

Fig. 3. Calculated shifting schedules, (a) two-speed schedule, (b) three-speed schedule, (c) four-speed schedule.

Fig. 4. Traction curves for different gear ratios.

8 J. Liang et al. / Mechanism and Machine Theory 133 (2019) 1–22

Fig. 5. Lumped model of the dual clutch transmission.

3. Power-on shifting control

Achieving power-on shifting during regenerative braking is one of the most challenging problems in implementing mul-
tispeed transmission system in electric vehicles. As it’s considerably difficult to coordinate the hydraulic system based me-
chanical braking torque and the torque of the transmission system during gear shifting accurately because during the brak-
ing process, the total brake force demand is decided by the driver through pressing the brake pedal, and it may consist of
the regenerative braking force and the mechanical force. For a traditional system, if gear shift takes place, the regenerative
braking force will drop significantly, forming an obvious torque interruption. As the total braking demand is required to be
relatively stable, it requires the mechanical system to response fast and accurately to compensate the force drop. Moreover,
the regenerative braking force will be restored after the gear shifting is completed which again requires a fast and accurate
drop of the mechanical braking force. As a result, most existing systems keep the gear unchanged during the whole process
which compromises the overall efficiency [42]. The details of the proposed power-on shifting strategy and the corresponding
dynamic model are demonstrated in the subsections.

3.1. Dynamic system modeling

As multispeed DCT could be derived from a two-speed DCT system by including more gears and corresponding synchro-
nizers, and the engagement of the target gear energized by the synchronizer before the activation of clutches wouldn’t have
much influence on the dynamic performance, a lumped two-speed DCT model is built and shown in Fig. 5.
J represents the inertia of the corresponding component, K is the stiffness and C is for the damping coefficient. JM is the
propelling motor and JD represents the flywheel/Clutch drum, JC1 and JC2 are the clutch packs, JG1a , JG1b , JG2a and JG2b are
the reduction gears, JF1 , JF2 and JF3 represent the final drive set, JV is the vehicles inertia. The total vehicle inertia includes
the main vehicle body inertia, the inertia of the auxiliary equipment and the inertia of the wheels. It can be calculated as
JV = M̄ × rt2 . K1 is for the motor output shaft, K2 and K3 are the primary shafts, K4 and K5 are the lay shafts, K6 represents
the tyres. TC1a is the left side torque of the clutch, TC1b is the right side torque of the clutch and TV is the resistance.
Based on the free body diagram, the equation of system input can be expressed as
JM θ̈M = TM − CM θ˙ M − K1 (θM − θD ) (11)
where θ is the angular displacement and the first and second derivative of θ are angular velocity and angular acceleration,
respectively. Considering the friction torque from both clutches, the dynamic equations of the clutches are
JD θ̈D = K1 (θM − θD ) − TC1 − TC2 (12)

JC1 θ̈C1 = TC1 − K2 (θC1 − γ1 θG1b ) (13)

JC2 θ̈C2 = TC2 − K3 (θC2 − γ2 θG2b ) (14)

where TC1 and TC2 are the friction torques of the clutches, γ 1 and γ 2 are the chosen gear ratios. Then, the expressions for
the lay shaft are as follows:
(γ12 JG1a + JG1b )θ̈G1b = γ1 K2 (θC1 − γ1 θG1b ) − K4 (θG1b − γ3 θF 2 ) (15)

(γ12 JG1a + JG1b )θ̈G1b = γ2 K3 (θC2 − γ2 θG2b ) − K5 (θG2b − γ4 θF 2 ) (16)

where γ 3 and γ 4 are the engaging ratios of the final differential. The dynamic equation of the final driving shaft can be
expressed as


JF 2 + γ32 JF 1 + γ42 JF 3 θ̈F 2
 J. Liang et al. / Mechanism and Machine Theory 133 (2019) 1–22 9

Table 6
Key parameters used in the model.

Symbol Name Value Symbol Name Value

JM Motor 0.065 kg · m2
JF3 Final drive 3 0.001 kg · m2
JD Clutch drum 0.3 kg · m2 JV Vehicle 281.6 kg · m2
JC1 Clutch one 0.0072 kg · m2 C1 Tyre damping 50 Nm · s/rad
JC2 Clutch two 0.0125 kg · m2 K1 Motor output 50,0 0 0 Nm/rad
JG1a Gear 1 0.015 kg · m2 K2,3 Primary shaft 1,2 50,0 0 0 Nm/rad
JG1b Pinion 1 0.0075 kg · m2 K4,5 Lay shaft 1,2 50,0 0 0 Nm/rad
JG1a Gear 2 0.0094 kg · m2 K6 Tyre stiffness 22,0 0 0 Nm/rad
JG2b Pinion 2 0.0063 kg · m2 Rm Mean clutch radius 87 mm
JF1 Final drive 1 0.003 kg · m2 μD Dynamic friction 0.3
JF2 Final drive 2 1.16 kg · m2 μS Static friction 0.35

= γ3 K4 (θG1b − γ3 θF 2 ) + γ4 K5 (θG2b − γ4 θF 2 ) (17)

− K6 (θF 2 − θV ) − C1 (θ˙ F 2 − θ˙V )
and the vehicle model dynamic equations considering the external resistance TV are as follows:
JV θ̈V = K6 (θF 2 − θV ) + C1 (θ˙ F 2 − θ˙V ) − TV (18)
As clutch torque is crucial in determining the dynamic responses in the mathematical model, its definition is defined as
follows:
⎧
⎨sign(θ˙ )ns μD Rm F θ˙ = 0
Tc = sign(θ˙ )ns μS Rm F θ˙ = 0, |TAVG | ≥ |ns μS Rm F | (19)
⎩
TAVG θ˙ = 0, |TAVG | < |ns μS Rm F |
TC1a + TC1b
TAVG = (20)
2

TC1a = −JD θ̈D + K1 (θM − θD ) − TC2 (21)

TC1b = JC1 θ̈C1 + K2 (θC1 − γ1 θG1b ) (22)

where ns is the number of friction surfaces, μD and μS are the dynamic and static friction coefficients, respectively. Rm is
the mean clutch diameter and F is the normal force calculated from the piston surface area multiplied by clutch pressure.
It should be noted that Eq. (19) is the expression of computing the torque of the clutch 1 rather than the torque of the two
clutches. The value of TAVG is not the average of the two clutches, but the average of torque computed by the two sides of
clutch 1. It actually denotes the required torque transmitted by the clutch 1. The first two equations in Eq. (19) just provides
the maximum dynamic and static friction torque can be transmitted by the clutch 1, but they may not provide the actual
torque transmitted by clutch when the required clutch torque is smaller than them. As a result, the third equation is added
to compute the actual clutch torque when the aforementioned case happens. Theoretically, the value of TAVG should be equal
to both the TC1a and TC1b . However, in the numerical implementation, there can be a lot of numerical errors to make the
TC1a be unequal to TC1b . As a result, the average value of TC1a and TC1b is adopted to make the model be numerical stable. In
the implementation, the relative speed of the clutch two sides will be firstly checked. If the relative speed is nonzero, the
clutch is in the first case, so the clutch torque will be computed by using the first equation. If the relative speed is zero, the
TAVG will be computed and then compared with the value of the maximum static friction torque. If the magnitude of TAVG
is equal to or larger than the magnitude of maximum static friction torque, the clutch is in the second case, so the actual
clutch torque will be computed by the second equation. On the other hand, if the magnitude of TAVG is smaller than the
magnitude of maximum static friction torque, the clutch is in the third case and the third equation will be used to compute
the clutch torque.
Table 6 shows some of the parameters used in the model.

3.2. Proposed power-on shifting control strategy

The most critical difference of shifting between normal driving and regenerative braking is the reverse of the motor
torque. As the motor torque is expected to replace the hydraulic friction torque during the inertia phase and torque phase
of shifting, the direction of torques in the drum should be reversed to match the desired torque direction and this should
be applied in both up-shift and down-shift.
Conceptually, the up-shift process is shown in Fig. 6. During the inertia phase in Fig. 6(a), the output torque direction is
influenced jointly by the clutch 2 slip speed and other variables as
TC2 = f ( (ωM − ωC2 ), PC2 , X, μ ) (23)
10 J. Liang et al. / Mechanism and Machine Theory 133 (2019) 1–22

Fig. 6. Speed and torque change during up-shift, (a) speeds of the motor and clutch, (b) torque profile of the motor, clutch and the output.

Fig. 7. Up-shift control algorithm for regenerative braking.

where ωM is the motor speed and ωC2 is the clutch 2 speed. PC2 is the hydraulic pressure of clutch2 actuator, μ is the
clutch friction coefficient and X is the position of the piston. The model of the clutch actuator system is simplified that
the pressure in the clutch actuator, which is the control variable, is equal to the pressure of the clutch disks. Moreover, a
piecewise control method is adopted here which will check the position of the piston first and then change the pressure
following the pressure profile introduced in [24]. It can be seen that only the slip speed (ωM − ωC2 ) determines the friction
torque direction. As a result, before the torque phase where friction torque is handed over to clutch 2, the motor speed
should be reduced to the condition of (ωM − ωC2 ) < 0. From the perspective of normal driving, it can be considered as
the reverse of power-on down-shift. However, instead of overrunning the clutch to ensure correct frictional conditions the
motor must now under-run clutch 2. In Fig. 6(b), the torque profiles of the clutches, the motor and the output shaft are
shown. Moreover, up-shift actually accounts for a very limited part of all breaking scenarios as the vehicle speed always
decreases and the potential high torque demands always lead to a lower gear, even up-shift could take place in regenerative
braking, the brake demand is relatively weak. In the demonstration, the influence of gear ratios are not presented, if the
motor torque doesn’t change during the shifting process, the final output torque will be reduced as the gear ratio becomes
small. The shift control algorithm is shown in Fig. 7. The control strategy includes the initialization phase in which the
oncoming clutch is pre-filled and the pressure of the off-going clutch is reduced to the slip point. Once the slip point is
reached, the applied positive friction torque on the motor from the clutch will become smaller while the negative torque
from the motor itself is kept constant. As a result, the sum of the torque applied on the motor will be negative which will
reduce the speed of the motor until it is slower than the speed of the oncoming clutch. Then the torque phase begins, as
the speed of motor is slower than that of the oncoming clutch, the friction torque will be negative and will continue to
decelerating the vehicle. At the same time, the pressure of the oncoming clutch will be increased and the torque of the
other clutch will be reduced to finish the torque handover and then complete the lock-up. The delta acceleration during
engagement will have significant influence on the drivability and driving comfort, it should be well tuned to minimize the
torque fluctuation [29]. It should be noted that the design of the trajectory for the pressure is very important and has been
well investigated by many researchers for a long time. In [43], dynamic programming is adopted to generate the optimized
 J. Liang et al. / Mechanism and Machine Theory 133 (2019) 1–22 11

Fig. 8. Speed and torque change during down-shift, (a) speeds of the motor and clutch, (b) torque profile of the motor, clutch and the output.

Fig. 9. Down-shift control algorithm for regenerative braking.

pressure trajectory. In [44], a shaft model-based observer is designed to estimate the transmitted torque on each clutch to
achieve the optimal control. And a tuning based method is adopted in [29] to get the optimal pressure trajectory. The basic
idea is to both eliminate the possible overshot and torque hole by optimizing the pressure trajectory to keep the output
torque as stable as possible. The details of the pressure control method used here has been illustrated in [24].
For down-shift, the sequence of inertia phase and torque phase should be switched as shown in Fig. 8.
As the speed of the motor is already lower than that of the oncoming clutch which has a higher gear ratio, the whole
torque direction matching will be much simpler. This is procedurally similar to the principle of a power on up-shift in
conventional driving conditions. In Fig. 8(b), the output brake torque could be very steady and with a constant motor torque
the output brake torque could be increased significantly due to a higher gear ratio. Fig. 9 shows the control strategy for the
down-shift.
In the procedure of down-shift, the torque phase now precedes the inertia phase and the main task could be focused on
the functionality which is to maintain the output torque, minimizing the torque hole. During the inertia phase, the torque
of the motor could be slightly reduced so that the friction torque would increase the speed of the motor to synchronize
it rapidly with the oncoming clutch. An important difference between the proposed method and the traditional one is the
direction of the torque and the direction of the rotation. Because in the traditional method, the motor torque is also positive,
in other words, the direction of the motor torque is the same with its speed. However, in the braking situation, the torque
generated by the motor is in the opposite direction to the motor rotating direction. This means that reduce the (braking)
torque generated by the motor, the overall positive torque on the motor, which is in the same direction of the rotation,
will be bigger, and the motor will accelerate. If the expected output torque is fixed instead of the motor torque, the motor
speed will be reduced and the torque should be increased during up-shift. The reverse is also true that motor speed will be
increased and the torque should be reduced in down-shift. Both of these could improve the motor efficiency performance.
12 J. Liang et al. / Mechanism and Machine Theory 133 (2019) 1–22

Fig. 10. Braking force distribution and the corresponding performance.

4. Regenerative braking strategy

As the available regenerative braking torque is constrained by many factors such as the available motor torque, the gear
ratios and the corresponding torque interruption and the battery charging capacity, and it could only be provided through
the driven wheels, hydraulic braking system should always be ready to compensate the torque short. Moreover, the necessi-
ties could come from an emergency braking which requires more torque than the powertrain could provide. As a result, an
adequate regenerative braking strategy is required to both improve the overall efficiency and guarantee the driving safety.
As the performance of the battery is not the focus of this paper, a simple protection for the battery is adopted. When the
SOC is higher than 90%, the regenerative braking will be stopped to prevent overcharging. Moreover, the designed battery
capacity is relatively large which is 70 Ah, and the normal charging current is less than 1 C, which is far less than the
designed maximum charging current. For extreme braking conditions, mechanical braking will be involved which will also
limit the maximum charging current.

4.1. Braking capability and braking force distribution

Nowadays, most vehicles are equipped with proportional valves as the braking force distribution controller [45]. It could
distribute the braking force between the front wheel and the rear wheel according to the factors such as the braking demand
and load, making the braking force distribution curve meet the requirements of corresponding regulations. In this paper, the
force distribution system is simplified that the required mechanical braking force is perfectly and directly applied on the
wheels. To investigate the braking capability, both the braking force of the front wheels consisting of regenerative braking
and hydraulic mechanical braking and the force from rear wheels provided by the hydraulic mechanical brake alone should
be considered. Fig. 10 shows the braking force distribution and the corresponding performance [46].
In Fig. 10, the backward-sloping colored lines represent the constant braking forces under certain deceleration rates
which are multiples of g. According to the static tire friction coefficient, the front and rear maximum available friction force
can be given as
Ft f = μts · M̄g(Lr + z · hm )/L (24)


Ftr = μts · M̄g L f − z · hm /L (25)
where z = a/g is the rate of braking, L is the length of the wheelbase and the value is 3 m, Lf and Lr are the lengths from
the corresponding axles to the mass center and the values are 1.4 m and 1.6 m, respectively. hm is the height of the mass
center and the value is 1.45 m. The dynamic maximum available forces Ftf and Ftr are based on load transfer [41] and the
total maximum available force can be expressed as
Ftmax = Ft f + Ftr = μts · M̄g (26)
The influences caused by the tire friction coefficient μts and vehicle specifications are represented by the dash-dot lines
both vertical and horizontal. The front and rear wheels would be locked if the force exceeds the corresponding limits which
are the dash-dot lines. In this paper, considering the various road conditions and tires and the balance between performance
and costs, μts is set to 0.9 which is represented by the red dash-dotted lines. The lower left area is where certain braking
forces could be applied without locking up.
 J. Liang et al. / Mechanism and Machine Theory 133 (2019) 1–22 13

Fig. 11. Braking force distribution and wheel slip of the energy-oriented strategy.

In order to achieve the best braking performance, an ideal braking force distribution ratio represented by the green line is
determined by connecting the joints of the same friction factors of front brake and rear brake under different friction coef-
ficients. Along this line, vehicles could make the most of the friction forces and ensure the most stability and controllability
in braking. Although it’s possible for vehicles to brake with a braking force distribution above the ideal line, considering the
load transfer and safety issues, UNECE regulations [47], which stands for Economic Commission for Europe of the United
Nations, demand that the actual braking force distribution shouldn’t be higher than the ideal curve. According to the most
commonly adopted R13-H regulation [48] (Regulation No. 13: Uniform Provisions Concerning the Approval of Passenger Cars
with Regard to Braking), for two-axle vehicles under any loading, the rate of braking must satisfy the requirement as
z > 0.1 + 0.85(μts − 0.2 ) (27)
In order to guarantee the safety, a more demanding factor 0.85 is adopted to replace the R13-H regulation defined 0.7,
giving a greater safety margin. As a result, the distribution of braking forces for both the front wheels and the rear wheels
is shown by the ECE (Economic Commission for Europe) curve in Fig. 10 and can be calculated as
Ft f = M̄ (Lr + z · hm )(z + 0.07 )g/0.85L (28)

Ftr = M̄g · z − Ft f (29)

In summary, the possible braking force distribution area is restricted by the green ideal distribution line, the horizontal
axis, the ECE curve and the maximum available friction braking force on front wheels which is the red dash line.

4.2. Proposed energy-safety control strategy

As an adequate regenerative braking strategy not only has considerable influences on the system efficiency performance
but also impacts the driving safety, which can be measured by stopping distance and controllability, the strategy design-
ing becomes the most important step in developing an effective power-on regenerative braking system and has attracted
significant attentions. There are two main considerations in the strategy development which are the regenerative braking
capability and the dynamic performance also treated as safety robustness. In order to develop a regenerative braking strategy
that can maximize the recovered energy and at the same time maintain desirable dynamic performance, different possible
strategies designed according to different priorities are investigated and compared. As the designing of braking strategy is
independent of the transmission architecture and in order to reveal the continuous torque changes of the motor, a constant
third gear is adopted here.
In order to achieve the maximum recovered energy, an energy-oriented strategy is investigated. According to this strategy,
only the front electric brake is utilized for deceleration before it reaches the intersection point of the horizontal axis and ECE
R13-H regulation curve in Fig. 10. Then, the braking force distribution between the front and rear wheels follows the ECE
regulation curve to harvest as much energy as possible. To assess the performance of the energy-oriented strategy, a testing
deceleration profile is designed consisting of three stages which are mild braking (0.1 g) from 100 km/h to 93 km/h in the
first 2 s, and then moderate deceleration (0.3 g) from 93 km/h to 60 km/h in the following 3 s, then emergency braking
(0.7 g) from 60 km/h to 0 km/h in 2.3 s. Note that the deceleration profile dosen’t represent a actual braking scenario but
a test to reveal the braking performance. The braking forces and the wheel slip ratio are shown in Fig. 11. The tyre model
here is simplified built with a physical model adopting Magic Formula in Simscape to represent the longitudinal behavior.
14 J. Liang et al. / Mechanism and Machine Theory 133 (2019) 1–22

Fig. 12. Braking force distribution and wheel slip of the safety-oriented strategy.

It can be seen in Fig. 11(a) that at the beginning, all braking force are provided by the front regenerative braking which
follows the horizontal axis in Fig. 10. In moderate which starts from 112 s, as the deceleration rate increases to 0.3g, the
rear mechanical braking is energized under the R13-H regulation following the ECE line. At the same time, as the motor
reaches its limit, front mechanical braking is also energized to compensate the force shortage. In the final stage where the
deceleration rate is around 0.7g, as the distribution stills follows the ECE curve, the front braking force exceeds the friction
limit which is restricted by the red dash line μ = 0.9 in Fig. 10, the front wheels are locked and the front wheel slip ratio
increases to −1 in Fig. 11(b). In this situation, as the tyre is locked, the regenerative process will be stopped and no energy
could be recovered. As a result, this strategy in not acceptable. It can also be seen in Fig. 11(a) that the actual vehicle speed
cannot follow the reference speed and the rear braking force is around 2300 N which is much lower than that of the front
braking force.
To improve the braking dynamic performance and guarantee the driving safety, a safety-oriented strategy following the
ideal distribution curve and disabling regenerative braking in emergency situation is investigated in Fig. 12 adopting the
same deceleration profile.
It can be seen that the rear mechanical braking is activated from the beginning of the deceleration assisting the front
braking. The difference between values of the front and rear braking forces is caused by the load transfer. Although less
energy can be recovered under this strategy, the balance between the front and rear braking forces is achieved and shown in
Fig. 12(b) that the front and the rear slip ratios are almost the same. Another drawback of this strategy is that in emergency
situation, only mechanical braking is allowed for the front wheels which can be seen in Fig. 12(a).
Combining the two investigated strategies, an eco-safety strategy is proposed, which adopts the energy-oriented strategy
in mild and moderate braking and switches to the ideal distribution curve keeping the regenerative braking ability but
disabling the gear shifting function, and is shown in Fig. 13.
Without considering the batter SOC and power, the regenerative system recovers as much energy as possible in mild and
moderate braking, in emergency situation, the motor works at its limit and the value of the rear mechanical braking force
is around −50 0 0 N which keeps the slip ratio at minimum and can be seen in Fig. 13(b). The flowchart of the proposed
braking control strategy is summarized in Fig. 14.
It’s worth noting that most daily braking scenarios belong to mild braking and moderate braking, the efficiency im-
provement within these two categories would represent the improvements in regenerative braking. In emergency braking
scenario, the priority goes to safety concerns and the possible slight braking force oscillations during gear shifting may cause
serious problems. As a result, the gear shifting function is disabled in emergency situation and the motor only provides as
much braking torque as possible in its current gear.

5. Power-on shifting and regenerative braking performance analysis

To verify the effectiveness of the proposed system, power-on up-shift and down-shift are investigated first to demonstrate
feasibility of conducting gear shifts during regenerative braking. Then, a typical braking performance driving cycle NEDC is
adopted to demonstrate the efficiency improvement achieved by the system. At last, a specially designed daily braking
scenario is used to further illustrate the dynamic performance improvement and efficiency improvement.
 J. Liang et al. / Mechanism and Machine Theory 133 (2019) 1–22
Fig. 13. Braking force distribution and wheel slip of the proposed strategy.

15
16 J. Liang et al. / Mechanism and Machine Theory 133 (2019) 1–22

Fig. 14. Proposed regenerative braking strategy.

Fig. 15. Up-shift during regenerative braking.

5.1. Shifting control performance

As the detailed dynamic responses of gear shifts between different gears are similar, to make the paper as concise as
possible, only one up-shift and down-shift between the first and second gear are presented here. Fig. 15 shows the dynamic
performance of the up-shift. Fig. 15(a) shows the speeds of clutch 1, clutch 2, the output shaft and the motor, it can be seen
that the motor speed starts to decrease at 9.5 s when the pressure of clutch 1 drops to the slip point shown in Fig. 15(b). It
should be noted that this process is different from the normal driving condition as in regenerative braking the motor serves
as an generator and the torque of motor is negative. In acceleration scenario, if the output torque of motor is constant and
the pressure of clutch 1 drops to the slip point, the motor would accelerate because the friction load, which is negative,
is reduced and the resultant torque is positive. However, in regenerative braking, the friction load is positive and when it
drops, the resultant torque on the motor is negative then the speed of the motor drops. It also can be seen that the torque
of the output shaft drops due to the reduced friction torque caused by the dropped pressure, which will cause certain
torque fluctuations. At 9.7 s, the speed of the motor drops below the speed of clutch 2 which indicates the completion of
inertia phase and the initiation of torque phase where the pressure of clutch 1 drops further to 0 and the pressure of clutch
 J. Liang et al. / Mechanism and Machine Theory 133 (2019) 1–22 17

Fig. 16. Down-shift during regenerative braking.

2 increases. As the pressure of clutch 2 increases, the positive friction load on the motor rises and the resultant torque
becomes positive which will accelerate the motor again to match the speed of clutch 2. During this process, the output
shaft torque will slightly fluctuate as the regenerative brake torque is being handed over from clutch 1 to clutch 2. After
clutch 2 reaches its slip point and the pressure of clutch 1 drops to 0, the torque phase is completed and the pressure of
clutch 2 will ramp up to locked value. The final output torque will decrease as the motor torque is constant and the gear
ratio becomes smaller. It should be pointed out that up-shift during braking rarely happens and the brake demand is always
low, as a result, the slight fluctuations wouldn’t raise safety concerns. It can be seen in Fig. 15(c), the peak of the vehicle
jerk during regenerative braking is just above 5 m/s3 and smaller than 10 m/s3 which is the recommended threshold [49],
which will both guarantee the drivability and the driving comfort, demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed method.
The detailed down-shift process is shown in Fig. 16. Different from up-shift, the torque phase comes first in down-shift
because the motor speed is already lower than the speed of target clutch that the clutch plates engagement will cause
desired regenerative torque. It can be seen in Fig. 16(b) that the shifting process starts from 9.25 s when the torque of
clutch 2 drops near but above the slip point followed by the increase of clutch 1 torque. During the torque handover where
clutch 2 pressure drops to 0 and clutch 1 pressure increases, the pressures are coordinated to maintain the output torque as
steady as possible. As torque phase precedes the inertia phase, the output regenerative torque could be kept steady or even
increased due to the change of gear ratio which can be seen between 9.5 s and 9.9 s. After the pressure of clutch 2 drops
to 0, the inertia phase begins and the motor starts to accelerate due to the resultant torque on the motor becomes positive
. In order to shorten the inertia phase and reduce the possible jerk caused by suddenly locking the clutch, the motor torque
is adequately decreased to make the resultant torque positive to increase the motor speed to match that of clutch 1. When
there is no slip between the motor and the target clutch, the inertia phase is completed, the clutch will be locked and the
torque of the motor will ramp up to its initial value.
In practice, power-on down-shift is far more likely to happen because the vehicle speed drops during regenerative brak-
ing and a larger gear ratio is more likely to provide a greater braking force. As a result, power-on shifting is feasible and
beneficial during most regenerative braking conditions except emergency in which no gear shift is allowed. It can be seen in
Fig. 16(c), the jerks during the shifting process are relatively stable and the peaks also don’ t exceed the 10 m/s3 threshold.

5.2. Regenerative braking performance

To demonstrate the economic benefits of the proposed system, a 1174 s NEDC driving cycle, whose deceleration rate is
around 0.1 g, is adopted as well as a same 4-speed DCT transmission system without the ability to perform gear shifts
18 J. Liang et al. / Mechanism and Machine Theory 133 (2019) 1–22

Fig. 17. Speed and gear state comparisons in NEDC.

Fig. 18. Efficiency comparisons during braking in NEDC.

during regenerative braking as a comparison. As the dynamic response of gear shifting process has very limited influences
on the efficiency and recovering capability performance and will significantly increase the computational cost, it is simplified
in the following tests. Fig. 17 shows the speed profile of NEDC and the comparison between the gear states of the proposed
system and the comparison system.
As the NEDC repeats itself before 800 s, only the gear states after 630 s is shown in Fig. 17(b). Both the proposed system
and the comparison system could follow the speed profile but only the proposed system conducts down-shifts in every
deceleration process. To illustrate the efficiency improvement, Fig. 18 shows the motor working points in braking of the two
system.
It shows that there are four blue lines stretching towards the Y axis which is caused by the control strategy that the
comparison system can only keep the current gear ratio during braking. For the proposed system, it shifts as needed during
the whole braking process making the motor keep in the relatively higher efficiency area. Due to the shifting capability, the
proposed system could achieve a full stop with the first gear. The recovered energy of both systems are shown in Fig. 19
and the improvement achieved by the proposed system is around 4.5%.
 J. Liang et al. / Mechanism and Machine Theory 133 (2019) 1–22 19

Fig. 19. Comparison of recovered energy in NEDC.

Fig. 20. Comparisons of the speeds, gear states and driver pedals in a typical braking process.

As the deceleration requirements of most typical available driving cycles are too weak to reveal the regenerative braking
efficiency and recovering capability improvement, and to shed light upon moderate braking in daily life, a common braking
scenario is designed in Fig. 20(a).
The deceleration can be divided into three stages from 80 km/h to 52 km/h, then to 35 km/h and finally at zero with
a duration of 4 s for each stage, which could represent daily cruising deceleration scenarios where the braking pattern is
moderate-mild-moderate and the deceleration rate is around 0.2 g. In Fig. 20(b), as the initial speed is relatively high as
well as the high deceleration rate of the first state, the required regenerative braking force exceeds the available amount
which can be provided at the fourth gear, the proposed system conducts power-on down-shifts twice to the second gear to
increase the regenerative braking capability. At 98.8 s, as the vehicle speed drops below the shifting schedules for down-
shift developed in Section 2, the system decides to switch to the first gear to improve the motor efficiency and maintains
it until a full stop. It also can be seen in Fig. 20(c), that although the gear states are different for the two systems, the
driver pedal positions are almost the same. The reason is that although the regenerative braking forces of the two systems
are different, the total braking forces of the front wheels and the rear wheels are almost the same because of the proposed
regenerative braking force distribution and control strategy introduced in Section 4.
To further illustrate the improvements of regenerative capability and the regenerative efficiency are shown in Fig. 21.
At the beginning, the driver decides to brake at relatively high deceleration rate, which is 0.19 g at the fourth gear.
However, the required front braking force becomes greater than the available regenerative braking force. As a result, the
proposed system conducts power-on down-shift to obtain more torque. It can be seen that only one down-shift to the third
gear couldn’t properly solve the problem as the motor still works along its torque limit. After the proposed system switches
20 J. Liang et al. / Mechanism and Machine Theory 133 (2019) 1–22

Fig. 21. Efficiency maps for front wheels regenerative braking.

to the second gear, the torque capability is enough to provide all the needed front braking force which is 4903 N. As to
the comparison system, it could only work at the fourth gear providing a regenerative braking force around 4350 N, the
shortage of the front braking force will be provided by the mechanical system.
In the second stage where the deceleration rate is 0.12 g because the driver releases the braking pedal a little figuring
out it’s not necessary to brake at the previous rate. It can be seen that both systems could provide a regenerative braking
force of 3104 N while the proposed system operates between the efficiencies of 90% and 92% and the efficiency of the
comparison system is located around 80%.
In the final full stop stage, as the comparison system has already reached its regenerative braking limit due to the
un-changeable characteristic, the provided front regenerative braking force could only maintain its current value which is
4350 N and the shortage of the required front braking force could only be compensated by the front mechanical braking.
As the proposed system is in the second gear, it has more regenerative brake capability to meet the force requirement and
rises to provide the needed 6276 N. As the vehicle speed drops below the down-shift schedule threshold, it shifts to the
first gear for the final full stop. For the comparison system, in most braking process, the motor works along its torque limit
except the low braking requirement 4 s and in its low efficiency area which compromises both the regenerative braking
capability and the overall efficiency. During the whole braking process, most of the demanded braking force of the proposed
system comes from regenerative braking which is because the forces are distributed along the ECE curve and no emergency
situation is presented as the deceleration rates are generally below 0.24 g. It can be calculated that with the power-on
shifting capability and the regenerative braking control strategy, the recovered energy is considerably improved by 15.2%. It
should be pointed out that the deceleration rate is only around 0.2 g which is far more less than the emergency braking
threshold 0.6 g, and it also can be seen that there is still a lot of potential for the proposed system to recover much more
energy in more demanding scenarios.

6. Conclusions

To improve the regenerative braking performance of electric vehicles, a 4-speed transmission system with corresponding
control strategies is proposed and investigated. The system is based on an full size sedan to which regenerative braking
is more significant. Based on the selected vehicle specifications, systematic approaches are adopted to select the motor,
design the shifting strategy and choosing suitable gear numbers. In order to achieve power-on shifting during regenerative
braking, a detailed mathematical model is built and an advanced multispeed transmission power-on shifting strategy is
proposed. Due to the difference between acceleration and deceleration, braking force distribution is investigated and a eco-
safety regenerative braking strategy is proposed which could both recover more energy and guarantee safety in emergency
situations. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed system, the power-on shifting performance during regenerative braking
is evaluated as along with the efficiency improvements achieved by the proposed system in two braking scenarios. In the
dynamic performance evaluation, the torque interruption within gear shifting during the regenerative braking has been
adequately compensated and the regenerative braking force has been kept around the desirable value which makes the
shifting during regenerative braking practical. As a comparison, the system without the ability to conduct gear shifting is
 J. Liang et al. / Mechanism and Machine Theory 133 (2019) 1–22 21

adopted, and the results show that with the proposed system, the regenerative braking efficiency can be improved by 4.5%
in a typical NEDC cycle.

Acknowledgments

The financial support of this work by the Australian Research Council (ARC DP150102751) and the University of Technol-
ogy Sydney, is gratefully acknowledged.

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