Challenge Purpose

The studied racing vehicle is based on the one developed at the University of Nottingham. Its energy storage system is modified by the addition of a supercapacitor pack and two bi-directional DC/DC converters. This configuration forms a hybrid energy storage system (HESS) that needs to be managed optimally to extend the battery life-span and/or racing distance. The HESS energizes an internal permanent magnet (IPM) motor through an inverter. This traction motor is connected to a gearbox to drive the rear wheel of the EV. In this Challenge, losses of all power electronic converters as well as of the traction motor are taken into account when the vehicle runs.

This Challenge aims to extend the powertrain efficiency and racing distance by solving a coupling issue of energy consumption and power losses. For that, the cost function that consists of the battery usage, the supercapacitor charge-sustaining, standard deviation, battery regeneration energy, total power losses of the power converters and e-machine, as well as the total numbers of the power semiconductor modules must all be optimized.

The performance of the proposed strategy can be tested using the provided three driving cycles. All specifications and parameters of the studied system are supplied in the downloadable MATLAB/Simulink simulation model provided with this Challenge. The MVC 2024 Committee will choose an unknown driving cycle to score and rank all the teams.

Extended powertrain platform of the Challenge