[font face=Serif][font size=5]New Technology Will Cut Plug-in Hybrid Fuel Consumption by One Third[/font]
[font size=4]UC Riverside researchers are combining connected vehicle technology and evolutionary algorithms to make PHEVs more efficient[/font]
By Sarah Nightingale On JANUARY 10, 2017
[font size=3]RIVERSIDE, Calif. (
www.ucr.edu) Engineers at the University of California, Riverside have taken inspiration from biological evolution and the energy savings garnered by birds flying in formation to improve the efficiency of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) by more than 30 percent.
While not all plug-in hybrids work the same way, most models start in all-electric mode, running on electricity until their battery packs are depleted, then switch to hybrid mode. Known as binary mode control, this EMS strategy is easy to apply, but isnt the most efficient way to combine the two power sources. In lab tests, blended discharge strategies, in which power from the battery is used throughout the trip, have proven more efficient at minimizing fuel consumption and emissions. However, their development is complex and, until now, they have required an unrealistic amount of information upfront.
By mathematically modeling the energy saving processes that occur in nature, scientists have created algorithms that can be used to solve optimization problems in engineering, Qi said. We combined this approach with connected vehicle technology to achieve energy savings of more than 30 percent. We achieved this by considering the charging opportunities during the tripsomething that is not possible with existing EMS.
The current paper builds on previous work by the team showing that
individual vehicles can learn how to save fuel from their own historical driving records. Together with the application of evolutionary algorithms, vehicles will not only learn and optimize their own energy efficiency, but will also share their knowledge with other vehicles in the same traffic network through connected vehicle technology.
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