Overview on energy management strategies for electric vehicles - Modelling, trends and research perspectives

The economical and environment impacts of fossil energies increased the interest for hybrid, battery and fuel-cell electric vehicles. Energy management systems (EMS) have a fundamental role in achieving high efficiency levels in vehicle performances, without compromise its drivability features. This is a complex task, since one is dealing with the integration of different physical subsystems. In addition, several vehicle electric power-train architectures must be considered, requiring different energy management approaches. Considering EMS for real-time applications will bring a higher complexity level. This paper aims at putting these efforts into perspective deriving a more holistic view of the literature in this topic. We start the analysis on the general requirements for EMS to identify the more demanding ones for real-time applications. Based on this analysis, we suggest some open challenges and describe new research opportunities.