Prototype implementation of advanced electric vehicles drivetrain system: Verification and validation

Abstract

The design of high-efficient green means of transportation has become a real worldwide challenge, particularly to cope with the due sustainable development commitments. Accordingly, the realization and the development of a full electric drive system, as a drivetrain, for Electric Vehicles (EVs) has become necessary while considering the proper power and control circuits. Enhancing the efficiency of the energy conversion in EV’s powertrain can be conveniently performed through the proposed advanced control technique. This paper presents the prototype design and modelling of an all-in-one EV for industrial, educational and research activities. The proposed electric drivetrain, with its inherent flexibility advantage, enables verifying hardware and software solutions. The EV prototype consists of a 1.1 kW induction AC drive. The advanced electric drive system (EDS) is implemented as a novel part of the EV. This original EDS consists of power switches IGBT modules, advanced gate drivers, position and phase current sensors, and interface circuits. This EDS is governed by a non-commercial digital control tool TMS320F28335 DSP programmed by C++ in code composer studio (CCS). The advanced gate drivers are used for isolating and amplifying the control signals to the power switches. The advanced indirect field-oriented control (FOC) technique is used for torque and speed control of the AC drive. For adjusting the level of the rotor flux at random load variation circumstances, two control modes are adopted: flux-increased control (FIC) and flux-limited control (FLC). The design of the full EV prototype together with the integrated electric vehicle drivetrain (EVD) are presented. Consequently, experiments and simulations are performed to validate the significance of using such proposed two-mode controller. Through simulation analysis, the new EVD used for the EV set-up is verified. The simulation results demonstrate lower drawn supply currents with the proposed control technique. Thus, the energy conversion process becomes more efficient due to the increased power transmitted from the battery to wheels. The experimental setup for the novel EVD is integrated. The proposed two-mode control technique is experimentally verified considering random accelerator pedal as a reference torque input. The results illustrate the significant performance of using the proposed cascaded FIC and FLC techniques in EVs owing to the smooth and efficient transition between the modes. The different tests and measurements illustrate the usability of the proposed EVD as an ideal alternative to the commercial AC drives in favor of its developmental flexibility, commercialization-independency, and affordability.