Developing and Evaluating the driving and powertrain systems of automated and electrified vehicles (AEVs) for sustainable transport

He, Yinglong ORCID: 0000-0002-6666-8471 (2021). Developing and Evaluating the driving and powertrain systems of automated and electrified vehicles (AEVs) for sustainable transport. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

In the transition towards sustainable transport, automated and electrified vehicles (AEVs) play a key role in overcoming challenges such as fuel consumption, emissions, safety, and congestion. The development and assessment of AEVs require bringing together insights from multiple disciplines such as vehicle studies to design and control AEVs and traffic flow studies to describe and evaluate their driving behaviours. This thesis, therefore, addresses the needs of automotive and civil engineers, and investigates three classes of problems: optimizing the driving and powertrain systems of AEVs, modelling their driving behaviours in microscopic traffic simulation, and evaluating their performance in real-world driving conditions.

The first part of this thesis proposes Pareto-based multi-objective optimization (MOO) frameworks for the optimal sizing of powertrain components, e.g., battery and ultracapacitor, and for the integrated calibration of control systems including adaptive cruise control (ACC) and energy management strategy (EMS). We demonstrate that these frameworks can bring collective improvements in energy efficiency, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, ride comfort, safety, and cost-effectiveness.

The second part of this thesis develops microscopic free-flow or car-following models for reproducing longitudinal driving behaviours of AEVs in traffic simulation, which can support the needs to predict the impact of AEVs on traffic flow and maximize their benefits to the road network. The proposed models can account for electrified vehicle dynamics, road geometric characteristics, and sensing/perception delay, which have significant effects on driving behaviours of AEVs but are largely ignored in traffic flow studies.

Finally, we systematically evaluate the energy and safety performances of AEVs in real-world driving conditions. A series of vehicle platoon experiments are carried out on public roads and test tracks, to identify the difference in driving behaviours between ACC-equipped vehicles and human-driven vehicles (HDVs) and to examine the impact of ACC time-gap settings on energy consumption.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):