Effect of Optimal Control on Fuel Savings of Parallel Hybrid Electric Vehicle

This paper focuses on an analysis of attainable fuel savings of a parallel hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) compared to a vehicle of the same type powered by a conventional internal combustion engine. In PHEV the fuel savings can be achieved by using an optimal control strategy of the torque split factor. In this paper, the optimal control strategy is computed using dynamic programming for which the complex constraints are derived. The fuel consumption of both vehicle types is evaluated by a simulation for five different driving cycles, three standardized and two measured. The results show that the optimal control of a PHEV can reduce fuel consumption by up to 20%.