Optimal energy management in hybrid electric trucks using route information

For benchmarking a hybrid vehicles Energy Management Strategy (EMS) usually a given, mostly certified, velocity profile is exploited. In this paper it is reasoned that it is also beneficial to optimize the velocity profile. Especially optimizing the vehicle braking trajectories, through maximization of energy recuperation potential on a route, result in considerable fuel savings on the same travelled distance. Given future route (target speeds as function of travelled distance/location), traffic and possibly weather information, together with the vehicles road load parameters, the future load profile can be estimated. Dynamic Programming (DP) techniques can then be used to predict the optimal power split trajectory for the upcoming route, such that a desired state-of-charge at the end of the route is reached. The DP solution is re-calculated at a certain rate in order to adapt to changing conditions, e.g., traffic conditions, and used in a lower level real-time EMS to guarantee both battery state-of-charge as well as minimal fuel consumption