Combined power train and thermal management optimization using an extended dynamic programming

Abstract

Reducing the fuel consumption of heating and driving tasks is a major driver of innovation in today’s vehicle development. Besides the design and integration of efficiency- raising auxiliaries, especially the enhancement of full electric and hybrid drivetrains are in focus. An energy management controls the interaction of all vehicle components rule based or optimization based [1].

This paper presents an approach to optimize the energy management of the electric cabin heating and traction system of articulated urban serial hybrid buses using extended dynamic programming. The traction battery and the cabin air are defining the energy storage systems. Thus the state space for dynamic programming is described by the electric charge of the traction battery and the mean cabin air temperature. Extending the dynamic programming approach by thermal comfort aspects enables the global optimal control for each energy storage system additionally to the calculation of possible energy saving potentials.