Sensitivity Analysis of the Battery Model for Model Predictive Control Implementable into a Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle

Power management strategies have impacts on fuel economy, greenhouse gasses (GHG) emission, as well as effects on the durability of power-train components. This is why different off-line and real-time optimal control approaches are being developed. However, real-time control seems to be more attractive than off-line control because it can be directly implemented for managing power and energy flow inside an actual vehicle. One interesting illustration of these power management strategies is the model predictive control (MPC) based algorithm. Inside an MPC, a cost function is optimized while system constraints are validated in real time. The MPC algorithm relies on dynamic models of the vehicle and the battery. The complexity and accuracy of the battery model are usually neglected to benefit the development of new cost functions or better MPC search algorithms. In fact, the literature does not deal with the impact of the battery model on MPC. This is why this Ph.D. dissertation evaluates the impact of different battery models of a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) through a sensitivity analysis to reach optimal performance for an MPC. The required fidelity of the battery might depend on different factors:the prediction horizon also called look-ahead step time the vehicle states update time the vehicle model step time the objective function The results of simulations show that higher fidelity model improves the capability to predict accurately the battery aging. As the battery pack is currently one of the most expensive components of an electric vehicle and lithium is a limited natural resource, being able to manage precisely the battery aging is a crucial point for both the automotive company and the battery manufacturer. Another important aspect highlighted by this PhD dissertation is that higher battery fidelity model reduces the possibility to violate the SoC constraint, which is greatly desirable. In fact, this constraint is usually defined by battery manufacturers for safety and battery aging management reasons. Last but not least, it has been proven that the impact of the battery modeling for the MPC controller depends on what the objective function aims to optimize. For instance, battery modeling have limited impact if the objective function takes into account the fuel consumption but far more for if it considers the battery degradation