Systematic approach to the modeling and control of hybrid electric vehicle powertrains

Hybrid electric vehicle powertrains, especially those based on the power-split architecture, are complex dynamic systems that must be modeled in a systematic way in order to fully exploit an organized approach to control design. Much of the existing literature focuses on a high-level treatment of the modeling topic, typically emphasizing steady-state behavior. The present paper is motivated by the need for a general approach to lower-level dynamic modeling that can be applied for analysis, control and simulation of vehicles that feature the power-split architecture. A dynamic model and an associated integral controller are first developed in symbolic form. The resulting general formulation is then specialized in order to perform numerical simulations. Particular attention is devoted to an orderly method for computing controller feedback gains.