The Plugin Hybrid Vehicle is equipped with a smart control strategy, entirely designed at Tor Vergata, whose target is to obtain at the same time high efficiency (low fuel consumption) and the possibility of flexible vehicle use depending on the trip (trip-oriented control strategy). This is schematized in the figure below, where a supervisor via GPS is capable of controlling the vehicle.
This is possible by using a control defined with physical models of both the Electric Motor (EM) and the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), and that is thus characterized by intrinsic scalability.
The PHEV has been realized starting from a traditional purely thermal truck, equipped with a supervising ECU that manages both the ICE and the EM.
A 40 Ah 300V Kokam battery pack is currently installed in the vehicle, that is capable of 310 A peak discharge current
Results gathered so far on the experimental vehicle show how, once decided a trip (in terms of covered distance for example), the control strategy is capable to reach the target battery State Of Charge (SOC) at the end of the trip, whatever the evolution of vehicle speed over time.
