Search Results (2,189)

The global shift towards electric vehicles (EVs) has necessitated a paradigm shift in engineering education, emphasizing hands-on experiences and innovative learning approaches. This review article presents a comprehensive analysis of the design and fabrication process of an educational EV prototype, highlighting its significance in preparing future engineers for the rapidly evolving EV industry. The article delves into the historical development and recent trends in EVs, providing context for the growing importance of practical skills in this field. A detailed examination of the key components and systems in modern EVs, such as battery packs, electric motors, transmission systems, and chassis design, lays the foundation for understanding the complexities involved in EV prototype development. The methodology section explores the research approach, conceptual design, simulations, material selection, and construction techniques employed in the creation of an educational EV prototype. The evaluation and testing phase assesses the prototype’s performance, safety, and reliability, offering valuable insights into the lessons learned and areas for improvement. The impact of such projects on engineering education is discussed, emphasizing the importance of hands-on learning experiences and interdisciplinary collaboration in preparing students for future careers in the EV industry. The article concludes by addressing common challenges faced during EV prototype projects and providing recommendations for future educational initiatives in this field. Full article

For electric vehicle (EV) charging in North America, three AC connectors are standardized, resulting in a proliferation of charging stations which can only charge one of the three types of EV. We propose a “Universal EV Outlet” that works with an EV “carry along” charging cable—one end of the cable has a connector specific to that user’s EV, the other a plug for the Universal EV Outlet. This proposal does not interfere with, nor require change to, any existing charging stations. It does not require any new types of inlets on EVs. The components are already standardized. Eight use cases are examined to illustrate the advantages, and some limitations, of the Universal EV Outlet. The use cases illustrate how this solution: resolves the problem of multiple AC charging connectors, makes today’s “EV Ready” building codes more adaptable, lowers capital and maintenance costs, creates a solution to curbside and urban charging, increases energy efficiency, enables higher power three-phase AC charging for heavy vehicles, and facilitates use of EVs for building backup power and for vehicle-to-grid. Finally, we propose a standards-based active cable used with the Universal EV Outlet, which would allow fast and secure EV identification for curbside or other shared charging locations, usable today without modifications to current EVs. Full article

The energy management system of a fuel cell electric robot should be highly responsive to provide the required power for various tactical operations, navigation of different routes, and acceleration. This paper presents a new multi-level online energy management strategy for a fuel cell electric robot based on the proposed functions of equivalent hydrogen fuel value evaluation, classification of the battery state of charge via the squared combined efficiency function, identification of the robot maneuver condition based on the proposed operation state of robot function, improvement of the overall energy efficiency based on the proposed function of the battery overcharge control, and separation of the functional points of the fuel cell based on the operational mode control strategy. The simulation study of the proposed online multi-level energy management strategy was carried out with MATLAB R2018b software to verify its superiority by comparing with other strategies. The results indicate a reduction in hydrogen consumption, reduction in fuel cell power fluctuations, prevention of battery overcharging, and incrementation in the total energy efficiency of energy storage systems compared to other energy management strategies. Full article

One of the most significant and widely used features currently in autonomous vehicles is the cruise control system that not only deals with constant vehicle velocities but also aims to optimize the safety and comfortability of drivers and passengers. The accuracy and precision of system responses are responsible for cruise control system efficiency via control techniques and algorithms. This study presents the dynamic cruise control system model, then investigates a genetic algorithm of the proportional–integral–derivative (PID) controller with the linear quadratic regulator (LQR) based on four fitness functions, the mean squared error (MSE), the integral squared error (ISE), the integral time squared error (ITSE) and the integral time absolute error (ITAE). Then, the response of the two controllers, PID and LQR, with the genetic algorithm was compared to the response performance of the fuzzy and fuzzy integral (Fuzzy-I) controllers. The MATLAB 2024a program simulation was employed to represent the system time response of each proposed controller. The output simulation of these controllers shows that the type of system stability response was related to the type of controller implemented. The results show that the Fuzzy-I controller outperforms the other proposed controllers according to the least Jmin function, which represents the minimum summation of the overshoot, settling time, and steady-state error of the cruise control system. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of driving accuracy, safety, and comfortability during acceleration and deceleration due to the smoothness and stability of the Fuzzy-I controller with a settling time of 5.232 s and when converging the steady-state error to zero. Full article

The key to improving the fuel economy of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) lies in the energy management strategy (EMS). Existing EMS often neglects engine operating conditions, leading to frequent start–stop events, which affect fuel economy and engine lifespan. This paper proposes an Integrated Engine Start–Stop Dynamic Programming (IESS-DP) energy management strategy, aiming to optimize energy consumption. An enhanced rule-based strategy is designed for the engine’s operating conditions, significantly reducing fuel consumption during idling through engine start–stop control. Furthermore, the IESS-DP energy management strategy is designed. This strategy comprehensively considers engine start–stop control states and introduces weighting coefficients to balance fuel consumption and engine start–stop costs. Precise control of energy flow is achieved through a global optimization framework to improve fuel economy. Simulation results show that under the World Light Vehicle Test Cycle (WLTC), the IESS-DP EMS achieves a fuel consumption of 3.36 L/100 km. This represents a reduction of 6.15% compared to the traditional DP strategy and 5.35% compared to the deep reinforcement learning-based EMS combined with engine start–stop (DDRL/SS) strategy. Additionally, the number of engine start–stop events is reduced by 43% compared to the DP strategy and 16% compared to the DDRL/SS strategy. Full article

In developing cities, transport activities have become one of the primary sources of CO₂ emissions and energy consumption owing to rapid economic growth, urbanization, and motorization. Khon Kaen City, Thailand, was chosen as a representative mid-sized city of a developing country to investigate the potential influences of transit-oriented development (TOD), light rail transit (LRT), and electric vehicle (EV) policy integration scenarios on CO₂ emission and energy consumption reductions in 2016, 2026, and 2046. The TOD did not significantly reduce CO₂ emissions or energy consumption because it was only applied in one area of the city. The LRT development also had a small effect because of the small proportion of modal shifts to LRT. However, EV utilization offered the greatest potential for reducing both CO₂ emissions and energy consumption. In addition, the integrated scenario combining the three policies had a promising effect, diminishing both CO₂ emissions and energy consumption, because it gathered the potential merits and benefits of each individual policy. Full article

Dual-Active-Bridge (DAB) DC–DC converters are becoming increasingly favored for their efficiency in transferring electrical power across varying voltage levels. They are crucial in enhancing safety and reliability in various fields, such as renewable energy systems, electric vehicles, and the power supplies of electronic devices. This paper introduces a new control strategy for bidirectional isolated DAB DC–DC converters, implementing a Double Integral Super Twisting Sliding Mode Control (DI-STSMC) to accurately regulate the output voltage and current. The approach starts with a state-space representation to mathematically model the DAB converter. In light of model uncertainties and external disturbances, a robust DI-STSMC controller has been formulated to optimize the DAB converter’s output performance. This method achieves zero steady-state error without chattering and provides a quick response to fluctuations in load and reference changes. The validity of the proposed technique is demonstrated through simulation results and a control hardware-in-the-loop (CHIL) experimental setup, using Typhoon HIL 606 and Imperix B-Box RCP 3.0 on a 230 W DAB converter. Furthermore, the paper offers a comparative analysis of the DI-STSMC with other control strategies, such as the proportional-integral (PI) controller, standard sliding mode control (SMC), and integral sliding mode control (ISMC). Full article

As the market for hybrid and electric vehicles expands, electric motor production and testing technology must be continuously improved to meet the cost and quality requirements of mass production. In order to detect faults in motors during the production process, a condition monitoring tool is used for the motor end line. During most condition monitoring, the motor operates in a static state where the speed of the motor remains constant and the voltage/current is recorded for a certain period. This process usually takes a long time and requires a loader to drag the motor to a standstill at a constant speed. In this paper, various transient process testing methods are introduced. For these processes, only transient operation of the motor, such as acceleration, loss, or a short circuit, is required. By analyzing the measurement results and simulation results of motor models, unhealthy motors can be detected more effectively. Full article

Microgrid systems face challenges in preserving frequency stability due to the fluctuating nature of renewable energy sources (RESs), underscoring the importance of advanced frequency stabilization strategies. To ensure power system stability in situations where renewable energy significantly contributes to the energy mix, it is essential to implement load frequency controllers (LFCs). Moreover, with the widespread use of electric vehicles (EVs), leveraging battery storage from EVs for microgrid frequency control is becoming increasingly crucial. This integration enhances grid stability and offers a sustainable solution by utilizing renewable energy more efficiently and reducing dependency on traditional power sources. Therefore, this paper proposes an innovative approach to LFCs, using fractional-order control techniques to boost the resilience of the interconnected microgrid systems. The approach centers on a centralized control scheme with a tilt fractional-order integral-derivative featuring an accelerated derivative (TFOID-Accelerated) controller. The accelerated derivative component of this controller is tailored to mitigate high-frequency disturbances, while its tilt feature and fractional integration effectively handle disturbances at lower frequencies. As a result, the proposed controller is expected to efficiently counteract disturbances caused by variability in RESs and/or load changes, achieving a high level of disturbance rejection. Additionally, this paper employs the recent growth optimizer (GO) method for the optimal design of the controller’s parameter set, avoiding the need for complex control theories, elaborate disturbance observers, filters, and precise power system modeling. The GO algorithm enhances fractional-order capabilities, offering a robust solution to the challenges of renewable energy variability and demand fluctuations. This is accomplished by optimizing parameters and simplifying the control system design across different microgrid scenarios. The proposed TFOID-Accelerated LFC demonstrates superior performance in enhancing frequency stability and minimizing oscillations compared to existing controllers, including traditional proportional-integral-derivative (PID), PID-Accelerated (PIDA), and tilt-integral-derivative (TID) controllers. Full article

In recent years, the market for used-vehicle trade in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has grown significantly. This is due to the high cost of new vehicles that are not affordable by most buyers and lifting the ban on women drivers. Recently, several online websites for selling vehicles are available with different functions. However, estimating the vehicle price is based on traditional calculation methods, and this is inaccurate in several selling situations, as there are many factors that may affect the vehicle price, and these factors must be taken into consideration when estimating the vehicle’s price. Therefore, there is high demand to develop an automated vehicle price estimation system through adopting artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Hence, this paper proposes an efficient vehicle price estimation system through developing an efficient deep neural network (DNN) model. The developed DNN model has been trained using a recent collected dataset for used-vehicle prices in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The developed system has been validated using a recent vehicle price dataset, and the obtained results are compared with seven different machine learning models and showed a promising regression accuracy. In addition, we developed a reliable graphical user interface (GUI) for the purpose of allowing the user to estimate the price of any vehicle using the pre-trained DNN model. Full article

Vehicle classification technology is one of the foundations in the field of automatic driving. With the development of deep learning technology, visual transformer structures based on attention mechanisms can represent global information quickly and effectively. However, due to direct image segmentation, local feature details and information will be lost. To solve this problem, we propose an improved vision transformer vehicle classification network (IND-ViT). Specifically, we first design a CNN-In D branch module to extract local features before image segmentation to make up for the loss of detail information in the vision transformer. Then, in order to solve the problem of misdetection caused by the large similarity of some vehicles, we propose a sparse attention module, which can screen out the discernible regions in the image and further improve the detailed feature representation ability of the model. Finally, this paper uses the contrast loss function to further increase the intra-class consistency and inter-class difference of classification features and improve the accuracy of vehicle classification recognition. Experimental results show that the accuracy of the proposed model on the datasets of vehicle classification BIT-Vehicles, CIFAR-10, Oxford Flower-102, and Caltech-101 is higher than that of the original vision transformer model. Respectively, it increased by 1.3%, 1.21%, 7.54%, and 3.60%; at the same time, it also met a certain real-time requirement to achieve a balance of accuracy and real time. Full article

Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) utilize boost converters to gain a higher voltage than the battery. Interleaved boost converters are suitable for low input voltage, large input current, miniaturization, and high-efficiency applications. This paper proposes a novel linear quadratic integral (LQI) control for the interleaved boost converters. First, the small-signal model of the interleaved-boost converter is derived. In the proposed method, an output voltage and a current signal error between two-phase input currents are selected to control not only the output voltage but also a balance between two-phase input currents. Furthermore, steady-state characteristics in terms of the output voltage and the input current are demonstrated by experiments and simulations using an experimental apparatus with a rated power of 700 W. The validity of the proposed method’s tracking performance and load response is demonstrated by comparing it with that of the conventional PI control. The tracking performance of the LQI control for the 40 V step response has a ten times faster response than that of the PI control. Also, the experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method maintains a constant output voltage for a 300 W load step while the PI control varies by 10 V during 70 ms. Additionally, the proposed method has an excellent disturbance rejection. Full article

Energy storage systems play a crucial role in the overall performance of hybrid electric vehicles. Therefore, the state of the art in energy storage systems for hybrid electric vehicles is discussed in this paper along with appropriate background information for facilitating future research in this domain. Specifically, we compare key parameters such as cost, power density, energy density, cycle life, and response time for various energy storage systems. For energy storage systems employing ultra capacitors, we present characteristics such as cell voltage, cycle life, power density, and energy density. Furthermore, we discuss and evaluate the interconnection topologies for existing energy storage systems. We also discuss the hybrid battery–flywheel energy storage system as well as the mathematical modeling of the battery–ultracapacitor energy storage system. Toward the end, we discuss energy efficient powertrain for hybrid electric vehicles. Full article

This study provides a comprehensive simulation for understanding the influence of EV growth and its external factors on grid stability and offers insights into effective management strategies. To manage the growth of battery-based electric vehicles (BEVs) in Indonesia and mitigate their impact on the power grid’s supply–demand equilibrium, regulatory adjustments and subsidies can be implemented by the government. The Jawa-Madura-Bali (Jamali) electrical system, as the largest in Indonesia, is challenged with accommodating the rising number of vehicles. Following an analysis of Jamali’s electricity supply using data from the National Electricity Company (RUPTL), simulations are constructed to model the grid’s demand side. Input variables such as Jamali’s population, the numbers of internal combustion engine (ICE) and electric vehicles, initial charging times (ICT), slow and fast charging ratios, and BEV charge load curves are simulated. Scenario variables, including supply capacity growth rate, vehicle population growth rate, subsidy impact on EV attractiveness, ICT, and fast charging ratio, are subsequently simulated for the 2024–2029 period. Four key simulation outcomes are identified. The best-case scenario (scenario 1776) achieves the highest EV growth with minimal grid disruption, resulting in a 45.38% EV percentage in 2029 and requiring an annual allocation of 492 billion rupiah to match supply with demand. The worst-case scenario leads to a 23.12% EV percentage, necessitating 47,566 billion rupiah for EV subsidies in 2029. Additionally, the most and least probable scenarios based on the literature research are evaluated. This novel simulation and its results provide insights into EV growth’s impact on the grid’s balance in one presidential term from 2024 to 2029, aiding the government in planning regulations and subsidies effectively. Full article

The wheels of decelerating vehicles in braking mode roll with increased slip, up to complete lock-up, which is a negative phenomenon. This is effectively managed by the anti-lock braking system (ABS). However, in the course of braking, especially before the system activation, self-excited oscillatory processes with high amplitudes may occur, causing increased dynamic loads on the drive system. The paper studies the braking processes of a vehicle with an electromechanical individual traction drive in both electrodynamic regenerative and combined braking modes, utilizing the drive and the primary braking system. The theoretical framework is provided for identifying the self-excited oscillation onset conditions and developing a technique to detect wheel slips during braking to suppress these oscillations. To check the functionality of the wheel-slip observer in braking mode, the performance of the self-excited oscillation pulse suppression algorithm was studied in the MATLAB Simulink 2018b software package. The study results can be used to develop control systems equipped with the function of suppressing self-excited oscillations by vehicle motion. Full article