Smart Power Control and Architecture for an Efficient Vehicle Alternator - Capacitor - Load System

Abstract

The introduction of additional electrical functionalities will represent a challenge for both the electrical energy and the power balance, which implies the need for good energy efficiency and a low system weight. In particular, safety-critical, power-consuming new systems, e.g. in the area of vehicle dynamics, demand high reliability in the vehicle power supply. The presented concept combines 1) efficient recuperation of the vehicle’s kinetic or potential energy even in conventional, IC-engine driven vehicles, 2) the buffering of power peaks and 3) the power management of particular loads. It is based on a modified voltage-controlled alternator and an appropriate charging strategy for a combination of super capacitors, battery and DC/DC converter allowing the use of very compact components. In addition to the theoretical description and modelling, a dedicated hardware-in-the-loop based test set-up was built in order to validate the approach with experimental data and results.