DOE Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Test Platform
- Advanced Vehicle Research Center, Danville, VA (United States)
Based on the contract NT-42790 to the Department of Energy, “Plug-in Hybrid Ethanol Research Platform”, Advanced Vehicle Research Center (AVRC) Virginia has successfully developed the phase I electric drive train research platform which has been named as Laboratory Rapid Application Testbed (LabRAT). In phase II, LabRAT is to be upgraded into plug-in hybrid research platform, which will be capable of testing power systems for electric vehicles, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles running on conventional as well as alternative fuels. LabRAT is configured as a rolling testbed with plentiful space for installing various component configurations. Component connections are modularized for flexibility and are easily replaced for testing various mechanisms. LabRAT is designed and built as a full functional vehicle chassis with a steering system, brake system and four wheel suspension. The rear drive axle offers maximum flexibility with a quickly changeable gear ratio final drive to accommodate different motor speed requirements. The electric drive system includes an electric motor which is mechanically connected to the rear axle through an integrated speed/torque sensor. Initially, a 100 kW UQM motor and corresponding UQM motor controller is used which can be easily replaced with another motor/controller combination. A lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) battery pack is installed, which consists of 108 cells of 100 AH capacity, giving the total energy capacity of 32.5 kWh. Correspondingly, a fully functional battery management system (BMS) is installed to perform battery cell operation monitoring, cell voltage balancing, and reporting battery real time operating parameters to vehicle controller. An advanced vehicle controller ECU is installed for controlling the drive train. The vehicle controller ECU receives traction or braking torque command from driver through accelerator and brake pedal position sensors and battery operating signals from the BMS through CAN BUS, and then generates motor torque command (traction or braking) to the motor controller based on the control algorithm software embedded in the vehicle controller ECU. The vehicle controller ECU is a re-programmable electronic control unit. Any control algorithm software developed can be easily downloaded to vehicle controller ECU to test any newly developed control strategy. The flexibility of the control system significantly enhances the practical applicability of the LabRAT. A new test methodology has been developed for the LabRAT simulating any vehicles running on road with different weights from compact passenger car to light duty truck on an AC or eddy current dynamometers without much effort for modification of the system. LabRAT is equipped with a fully functional data acquisition system supplied by CyberMetrix. The measurement points along the drive train are DC electric power between battery pack and motor controller input, AC electric power between motor controller and electric motor, mechanical power between motor and rear axle. The data acquisition system is designed with more capability than current requirements in order to meet the requirements for phase II.
- Research Organization:
- Advanced Vehicle Research Center, Danville, VA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- FC26-06NT42790
- OSTI ID:
- 1178565
- Report Number(s):
- NT-42790
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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