Driver intention analysis for a through-the-road solar hybridized car

In last decade, Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV) have emerged as real alternatives to engine-driven vehicles, in order to reduce fuel consumption and emissions. But their market share is still limited, as their impact on global fossil fuel demand and CO2 production. In parallel, the possibility of upgrading conventional vehicles to HEV is gaining interest. A research work on the development of a kit for converting a conventional vehicle into a Through-The-Road (TTR) Hybrid Solar Vehicle (HSV) has been recently performed at the University of Salerno, where flexible solar cells, an additional Lithium-Ion battery and two electrically driven wheel-motors have been mounted on a FIAT Punto. Preliminary studies performed by simulation have shown the technical and economic feasibility of this solution. In the proposed vehicle, the control of wheel motors is performed via a Vehicle Management Unit (VMU), which in turn reads data from the OBD port. In order to develop an effective and safe control strategy for wheel-motors, a precise real-time knowledge of the Driver Intention is required. In the paper, a set of mathematical models using data measured only by the OBD port are developed and integrated into a fuzzy logic model. A first release of the control system has been implemented and successfully validated on real driving cycles on a FIAT Punto. Copyright © 2013 SAE International.