Today, hybrid electric propulsion technology provides a promising and practical solution for improving vehicle performance, increasing energy efficiency, and reducing harmful emissions, due to the additional flexibility that the technology has provided in the optimal power control and energy management, which are the keys to its success.

In this work, a systematic approach for real-time optimal energy management of hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) has been introduced and validated through two HEV/PHEV case studies. Firstly, a new analytical model of the optimal control problem for the Toyota Prius HEV with both offline and real-time solutions was presented and validated through Hardware-in-Loop (HIL) real-time simulation. Secondly, the new online or real-time optimal control algorithm was extended to a multi-regime PHEV by modifying the optimal control objective function and introducing a real-time implementable control algorithm with an adaptive coefficient tuning strategy. A number of practical issues in vehicle control, including drivability, controller integration, etc. are also investigated. The new algorithm was also validated on various driving cycles using both Model-in-Loop (MIL) and HIL environment.

This research better utilizes the energy efficiency and emissions reduction potentials of hybrid electric powertrain systems, and forms the foundation for development of the next generation HEVs and PHEVs.