Victor D. N. Santos

A Real-Time Energy Management Architecture for Multisource Electric Vehicles

This paper presents an energy management architecture for small urban electric vehicles based on hybrid energy sources and its real-time implementation. The energy management strategy uses an integrated rule-based metaheuristic approach to obtain solutions for sharing energy and power between two sources with different characteristics, namely, one with high specific energy and another with high specific power. A comprehensive real-time architecture for the energy management system is presented considering different management levels. The proposed approach determines an optimized real-time energy sharing between the sources without prior knowledge of the power demand profile. The multilevel energy management strategy has been validated using power-level reduced-scale hardware-in-the-loop simulations for a normalized urban driving cycle. The experimental results show the effectiveness of a real-time implementation based on particle swarm optimization supported by a set of rules restricting the search space. This strategy is effective in controlling the energy sources to work in their higher efficiency region and in satisfying the dynamic performance of the vehicle.

A Simulated Annealing Approach for Optimal Power Source Management in a Small EV

This paper presents a novel energy management strategy for a hybridized power source small urban electric vehicle (EV). First, an analysis of load requirements for typical urban driving cycles is presented. Thereafter, the energy and power management issues are addressed for a multisource EV to define an improved management architecture. A dynamically restricted search space strategy coupled with a simulated annealing technique is exploited to accomplish the global optimization of the energy management system (EMS). The control of the dc/dc converter operations based on this EMS is also presented. The multiple sources have been simulated using an overall model implemented in Matlab/Simulink. A reduced-scale prototype has been built to analyze the performance of the energy management strategy. The results obtained show that energy management has been enhanced leading to an increase of the vehicle performance with reduced size embarked sources.

A unified energy management strategy for a dual-source electric vehicle

This paper presents a unified energy management strategy for small urban electric vehicles based on a hybrid energy storage system. This energy management strategy employs an integrated rule-based meta-heuristic approach that governs the power distribution in the vehicle powertrain. The proposed approach evaluates the optimal power distribution of the batteries and supercapacitors according to the power demand requirements. The multi-level energy management strategy has been validated using Matlab/Simulink® simulations for two normalized urban driving cycles. The simulation results indicate that the unified energy management strategy is effective to control the energy system components to work in their higher efficiency region and to satisfy the kinetic performance.

Multidimensional Markov Chains Usage in the Radio Resource Management Problem

This paper presents an analytical model that evaluates the performance of the Maximum Packing channel allocation technique on linear and planar cellular systems. The main innovations introduced by this model are the deterministic identification of the system space-state SMP and its application to a multi-dimensional Markov chain.

Comparative study of different energy management strategies for dual-source electric vehicles

This paper presents a comparative analysis between a pure battery electric vehicle and a dual-source electric vehicle endowed with a multi-level energy management strategy. The energy management of multi-source electric vehicles is a crucial aspect to obtain an effective contribution of the power sources, namely one with high specific energy and another with high specific power. This issue is particularly relevant for electric vehicles subject to high accelerations, breaking and those performing a large number of start and stop in its driving cycle. A comprehensive energy management system architecture with different management levels is presented and compared with a rule-based strategy (power disaggregation) and a pure battery electric vehicle. Simulations have been performed for two different urban driving cycles (NYCC and ARTEMIS low power urban) in order to validate and compare the effectiveness of the strategies under study. The results obtained show the usefulness of the proposed multi-level energy management strategy based on an integrated rule-based meta-heuristic approach versus an energy management strategy directed by the power disaggregation concept. The proposed approach increases the electric vehicle performance due to a better usage of the sources, which leads to a reduced installed power capacity.

New Solar Water Heating System: Safety, Design and Implementation Issues

Abstract This paper presents a new electronic controller, devoted to solar water heating systems, that implements safety functions to prevent L. pneumophila bacteria outbreaks. The controller uses data retrieved from strategically located probes in order to implement the proposed safety actions. The electronic solution was integrated and validated on a solar system prototype bench that uses real equipment such as collectors, a water storage tank and expansion vessels. Moreover, two particular solar water heating installations were designed devoted to a house family and a nursing home both located on the Mealhada area. The methodology and reported technical solutions in this research could be a practical guide to promote mass market usage of the solar water heating systems in Portugal.

Novel safety and energy management functions to solar water heating systems

This paper presents a solar water heating system with novel safety and energy management functions that protect both the solar installation and users health. The planned system schedules safeguarding operations and improves the efficiency of the heat transfer mechanism. The system prevents Legionella pneumophila bacteria colonies outbreaks and promotes energy management by using an extensive set of data, retrieved from strategically located probes that properly feed the implemented control algorithms. The methodology and the reported technical solutions in this research could be, in the future, used as an integrated part of the smart grid home area network being nowadays, in its simplest form, a practical guide to promote mass market usage of the solar water heating systems in Portugal.