Multihorizon predictive energy optimization and lifetime management for connected fuel cell electric vehicles

Abstract

A reliable energy optimization strategy incorporating vehicle connectivity is of great importance for the performance enhancement of fuel cell electric vehicles. In this paper, a multihorizon hierarchical model predictive control framework is proposed, which reduces energy consumption while incorporating fuel cell lifetime management though real-time speed preview. Specifically, the trajectories of battery state of charge are explored via convex optimization in the upper layer to provide a suboptimal reference for real-time optimization, and the concept of multihorizon is introduced into convex optimization for the first time. At the lower level, an equivalent consumption minimum strategy-based model predictive control is designed, which improves energy utilization efficiency and prolongs the lifetime of fuel cells. The main contribution of this paper is to use multihorizon optimization to solve the energy optimization and lifetime management of fuel cell electric vehicles over different timescales. Experimental results show that the proposed strategy has great potential in cost saving, which can reduce 10.10% to 16.95% of the total cost in real driving conditions compared with the rule-based strategy.