Energy management algorithm for a multi-motor electric vehicle with hybrid storage

This work originates from the participation in the seventh edition of the IEEE VTS Motor Vehicles challenge, which dealt with the design of the energy management algorithm of an electric vehicle equipped with a battery, a fuel cell, and three traction motors. Challenge contenders had to implement a control strategy that distributes the required torque during the driving cycle among the vehicle wheels, regulates the fuel cell power, and possibly reduces the vehicle reference speed to prevent safety constraint violations. This paper outlines two strategies that scored third and fourth place. One of their main differences is that fuel cell power is regulated either through a rule-based or a grid-search-based approach. As to the other variables under control, the strategies share a similar implementation, and some parameters were tuned through an improved gray wolf optimizer. Simulation results in all driving cycles provided demonstrate the effectiveness of the two proposed strategies.