Electric Vehicle Powertrain Architecture and Control Global Optimization

The design of a full electric vehicle (or battery electric vehicle (BEV)) requires the development and optimization of a complete electric powertrain, including battery, power electronics, electric machine, sensors and control system. When designing an electrical platform, from the very beginning of the V-cycle, it is mandatory to rely on modelling and simulation tools in order to drive the main choices and then to optimize the system. This paper presents an electric powertrain simulation platform developed with Matlab-Simulink, dedicated to multiphysic optimization of the system. As an example, the basic electrical powertrain architecture first considered in this paper includes a battery, an inverter, a dc-dc buck converter supplying motor inductor and a wound rotor synchronous machine (WRSM). The purpose is to show how simulation tools can help in comparing different powertrain control strategies. The present simulation platform is also useful to study physics architecture. To illustrate this point, another electrical architecture is also presented, including a dc-dc boost converter between battery and inverter. This structure must be considered here as an example only in order to show how to optimize control laws taking into account various criteria, including architecture ones. Simulation results are compared for both architectures in terms of powertrain performances and range.