A Predictive Driving Control Strategy of Electric Vehicles for Energy Saving

The driving route of a vehicle depends on the traffic condition and road condition in which the vehicle is operating and the driver's behavior. Different driving route will result in different energy consumption. It is very helpful for the vehicle energy saving if the most energy-efficient driving route is obtained based on the traffic preview information and provided to the drivers. This paper presents a predictive driving control strategy for pure electric vehicles for electrical energy saving. The strategy is established based on the optimal control theory and the traffic preview information in which the maximum and minimum vehicle velocity profiles for a traffic preview period and the route length over the period are included. The information is assumed to be acquired from Global Positioning System and Intelligent Transportation System. The proposed driving control strategy is implemented in a computer simulation environment for an electric vehicle and the simulation results of the strategy are compared to those of three benchmark cases. It is concluded that the battery energy of the electric vehicle is saved around 12.1%, 12.8%, and 13.8% by the proposed strategy compared to each benchmark case.