Modelling of Electric Vehicles Using Matlab
Modelling of Electric Vehicles Using Matlab
Citation: Al Halabi, M. and Al Tarabsheh, A., “Modelling of Electric Vehicles Using Matlab/Simulink,” SAE Technical Paper
2020-01-5086, 2020, doi:10.4271/2020-01-5086.
Abstract
and its distance travelled correspond to actual driving cycles
I
n this paper, we present a Matlab/Simulink model for and torque variations of an EV. The added value of this model
electric vehicles (EVs). We model the vehicle dynamics, is that it simulates the aerodynamic drag, linear acceleration,
transmission performance, and battery of the EVs to and rolling resistance forces where the modelled motor effi-
acquire the power requcirements of the battery and to later ciency hit 73%. Other results corresponding to its tractive
deduce the best types of battery to use for such applications. effect, motor efficiency, and battery requirements are
The simulations are performed through an integration of the obtained. The simulations are verified and all fit the theory
Matlab code and Simulink blocks. The velocity of the vehicle behind EVs.
Keywords
Electric vehicles, Simulink, Matlab, Vehicle dynamics, power, Electrical power, Motor efficiency
Transmission performance, Battery, Torque, Mechanical
1. Introduction
investigated the flow of energy and the performance and effi-
T
he Electric Vehicles (EVs) market is growing rapidly ciency of the BEV. Their model is subjected to further modifica-
because the people are more worried about carbon tions and can provide a solid foundation for BEV modelling.
dioxide (CO2) emissions and the impact of fossil fuels
on the environment. The key point for the EV market to FIGURE 1 Battery pack prices and the fitted data (dashed
succeed is to focus on research and development to model and lines). Data taken from Ref. [1].
develop the battery technology, motor efficiency, vehicle
dynamics, and transmission performance. The EVs’ battery
prices have declined, as depicted in Figure 1, where the expected
price (according to the fit) in 2020 will be $112 per kWh.
The industry of EV has grown rapidly in the last five years
and is expected to continue as the electric range is improved.
This is noticed by the market decline of conventional vehicles.
With the increase in the automation market demand, however,
comes the increase in fuel consumption. This adversely affects
the environment, especially with the CO2 emissions. Regular
vehicles can only run on petroleum as opposed to EVs or
hybrid EVs. This alternative method of transportation has a
huge impact on the environment as it reduces the toxic emis-
sions by making use of electricity and/or batteries.
© Anas AlTarabsheh.
© 2020 Anas AlTarabsheh. Published by SAE International. This Open Access article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original author(s) and the source
are credited.
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The analysis of a novel Switched Reluctance Motor (SRM) added value of this model is that it simulates the aerodynamic
hub motor is presented in [3] to improve the performance of drag, linear acceleration, and rolling resistance forces to
EVs. The authors followed a passive load scheme to model such maximize the motor efficiency. On the other hand, the velocity
vehicles and analyze their performance. The modelled SRM of the EV and its distance travelled correspond to the actual
consists of eight stator and six rotor poles. Its simple construc- driving cycles and the torque variations.
tion and low-inertia rotor make the SRM a good candidate The rest of the paper is summarized as follows: Section 2
for EVs in both generation and motoring modes. Due to the presents the proposed Matlab/Simulink model, Section 3
generated torque’s phase current polarity independenc of such discusses and analyzes the results, and Section 4 concludes
motor, we only require few static semiconductor switching the paper.
devices for driver applications. Moreover, the main advantage
of using SRMs is the torque-to-inertia ratio, where the initial
torque is very high to accommodate the high starting inertia
and hence its suitability for high-speed applications. 2. Proposed System
Another method for improving the performance of EVs
is presented in [4]. The authors propose a composite power The proposed Simulink model is based on the simulated model
supply for such that consists of a supercapacitor, large power, in [12], which is based on the EV modelling presented in [13].
and a conventional battery. To enhance the topology of the Our model is presented in Figure 2. To model any EV, three major
composite power supply, the Direct Current (DC)-to-DC parts should be taken into consideration: vehicle dynamics, trans-
converter in its structure uses the parallel staggered tech- mission performance, and battery. These three will be explained
nology. The whole structure is modelled in Matlab/Simulink, in detail while referring to the Matlab/Simulink model.
and the energy storage system is managed through fuzzy logic All parameters used in modelling EVs are presented in
control. The results conclude that this system improves the Table 1. The velocity and hence the acceleration of the vehicle
output power of the EVs, energy efficiency, and the process of is simulated and inputted into the Simulink model to model
discharging the battery. Also it is more applicable economically. a driving cycle of an EV.
Plug-in EVs utilize rechargeable batteries to drive the
motor unlike the Internal Combustion Engine vehicles. As
such, there are charging stations for these vehicles that allow 2.1. Vehicle Dynamics
them to be plugged into the power grid [5]. A fast DC off-board The first step towards modelling an EV is studying its vehicle
charging station that can accommodate multiple EV charges dynamics. This represents the net forces acting on a vehicle
is presented in [6] through the use of Matlab/Simulink. Two during its driving cycle and the effect of multiple parameters
types of controls are deployed: Voltage Regulation Control on its velocity and performance. Figure 3 illustrates the
(V-Control) for the front-end and Power Control (P-Control) different types of forces acting on a vehicle. These include the
for the back-end. There is an Alternating Current (AC)-to-DC aerodynamic drag Fad, acceleration, rolling resistance Frr, and
converter in the front-end to exchange the power between the hill-climbing F hc forces. The combined effect results in a
grid and the DC bus. The voltage on the DC link is maintained tractive effect force Fte. These four forces are represented in
constant, while the grid voltage is regulated using the V-Control. the upper half of the Simulink model in Figure 2.
On the back-end side, there is a DC-to-DC converter, where
the P-Control is responsible for providing a constant current 2.1.1. Aerodynamic Drag Force The first force acting
or reduced constant current. Also, the authors propose a battery on the EV is the aerodynamic drag force. This is caused by
management system for controlling the battery’s charging the friction of the air when the vehicle is moving. It can
current, voltage, and temperature. Their simulated results be defined as Equation 1:
conclude that varying the charging current reduces the charging
time of the battery. The dynamic model of an EV is investigated 1
by Matlab in [7], and the effect of different vehicle’s resistance Fad = ρ ACd v 2 Eq. (1)
2
forces on the vehicle performance is tested too.
The work of [8] presented a comprehensive EV system simu- where ρ is the air density, A is the frontal area of the vehicle,
lation to directly resemble the physical system using Matlab/ Cd is the air drag coefficient, and v is the vehicle speed in
Simulink graphical software environment. The article [9] devel- relation to the air. The subsystem that models this force is
oped a GUI in Matlab to monitor the most important variables demonstrated in Figure 4.
from the EV where the measured variables depend on the sensors’
signal to be later adapted to the appropriate voltage range. A 2.1.2. Acceleration Force There are two types of accel-
testing method focusing on the EVs’ driveability is proposed in erations to be considered while modelling an EV: linear and
[10] where the Matlab/Simulink models were developed to mimic angular accelerations. The angular acceleration can
the real-time testing cases. On the other hand, the authors in [11] be denoted as
used the Matlab/Simulink to study and model the system of EVs,
and they obtained simulation results that proved the accuracy IG 2
Fwa = a Eq. (2)
and efficiency of the proposed dynamic model. ng r 2
In our work, we deduce the best types of battery via
modelling the EV dynamics and transmission performance, where I is the moment of inertia, G is the gear ratio, ng is the
and the used battery to acquire the power requirements. The gear system efficiency, r is the tire radius, and a is the
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© Anas AlTarabsheh.
Vehicle total mass 1605 kg
Coefficient of rolling resistance 0.001
Gravitational force 9.81 m/s2
Efficiency of gear system 0.95
Regenerative coefficient 0.5
Gear ratio 13
Radius of the Tire 0.376 m
modelled their vehicle as such. The formula for the linear
Copper losses coefficient 0.3 acceleration force model, which is shown in Figure 5, is there-
© Anas AlTarabsheh.
Iron losses coefficient 0.01 fore given by Equation 3:
Windage losses coefficient 0.000005
Constant losses 600 FLa = 1.05ma Eq. (3)
Average power of accessories 150 W
FIGURE 4 Aerodynamic drag force Simulink subsystem. Our proposed model assumes level ground; thus, the
angle of inclination is zero, which in turn means that there is
no effect to the hill-climbing force on our model. However,
the blocks for modelling this force are shown in Figure 7.
FIGURE 7 Hill-climbing force Simulink subsystem. •• The vehicle is slowing down due to braking:
Pte Pout
Pmotorout = Eq. (8) η= × 100%
ng Pin
Pout
■■ Power into Motor η= × 100% Eq. (14)
Pout + Losses
Pmotorout Tω
Pmotorin = Eq. (9) η= × 100%
nm Tω + K cT 2 + K iω 3 + C
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FIGURE 8 Motor and controller efficiency FIGURE 9 Velocity (solid line) and acceleration (dashed
Simulink subsystem. line) of the EV vs. time.
© Anas AlTarabsheh.
© Anas AlTarabsheh.
T represents the torque and w represents the angular
speed. Since the current is directly proportional to the torque
provided by the motor, we use the torque instead of the current
in our proposed model. The coefficients of losses in Table 1
are that of a 100 kW induction motor primarily used for
modelling EVs.
FIGURE 10 Distance travelled vs. time.
2.3. Battery
Accurate battery models are a vital part of EV simulation. An
efficient battery model in [14] studied the Li-ion battery in
Matlab/Simulink to validate the reliability of the proposed
model. The final stage of the in-hand proposed model is the
battery requirements. It is modelled in the farthest lower right
side of the Simulink model in Figure 2. It depends on the total
electric power into the motor and the average accessory power.
Their addition corresponds to the total power utilized by the
battery. The accessory power, Pac, can include the power
required by the radio or the headlights, for instance. Equation
© Anas AlTarabsheh.
15 shows how to calculate such.
FIGURE 11 Aerodynamic drag force vs. velocity of the EV. FIGURE 13 Total tractive force vs. velocity of the EV.
© Anas AlTarabsheh.
FIGURE 12 Linear acceleration force vs. acceleration of © Anas AlTarabsheh. FIGURE 14 Motor efficiency vs. motor torque.
the EV.
© Anas AlTarabsheh.
© Anas AlTarabsheh.
the total tractive force. Figure 13 shows how the change in high, where the motor efficiency reaches its peak at around
velocity affects the total tractive force [15]. As mentioned 88%, and then it drops until it stabilizes at around 72%. This
previously, there is a small section where the torque is constant corresponds to the induction motor’s behavior, which verifies
up until around 19.8 m/s, which is equivalent to 71.28 km/h. the results we obtained. As for the torque-speed characteris-
This justifies why most of the results showcase two distinct tics, it can be noticed that an increase in the angular speed,
sections in the graphs. The increase in speed after the point which is directly proportional to the velocity, increases the
where the torque is constant clearly shows that it is followed torque since the mechanical output power of the motor is not
by an increase in the total tractive force. constant. In the beginning, the torque is almost constant or
slowly varying, but after 695 rad/s it increases significantly
until it reaches a maximum of 150 Nm.
3.2. Transmission As expected, the simulated graph of the torque versus the
velocity, Figure 16, will show a similar curve in Figure 15,
Performance Results since there is a direct relationship between the two speeds.
The transmission performance results deal with the motor’s In theory and practice, the higher the mechanical output
torque, efficiency, and electrical and mechanical powers. power of the motor the higher its torque. Our simulated graph
Figure 14 represents the relationship between the motor effi- shown in Figure 17 validates such concept. The highest
ciency and torque. In the beginning the induced torque is very mechanical output power reached is 500 kW.
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FIGURE 15 Motor torque vs. angular speed. FIGURE 18 Battery power required vs. the velocity of
the EV.
© Anas AlTarabsheh.
© Anas AlTarabsheh.
FIGURE 16 Motor torque vs. velocity.
4. Conclusion
In this paper, we model an EV while taking into consideration
its vehicle dynamics, transmission performance, and battery.
The model is done in Matlab/Simulink, and all the parameters
used mimic real EVs. There are three forces acting on the
modelled EV, which are the aerodynamic drag, linear accelera-
tion, and rolling resistance forces, as we assume level ground
for the hill-climbing force. The motor efficiency modelled
reached an average of 73%, which meets the expectations of
EV’s motor efficiency. The power required from the battery
may reach up to 700 kW for high speeds. As for the initial
© Anas AlTarabsheh.
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© 2020 Anas AlTarabsheh. Published by SAE International. This Open Access article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original author(s) and the source are credited.
Positions and opinions advanced in this work are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of SAE International. Responsibility for the content of the work lies
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ISSN 0148-7191