Challenge

Final Project: Electric Rickshaw modelling

Aim: To Create a detailed MATLAB model of an Electric Rickshaw (three wheel passenger vehicle).

Software used:MATLAB R2020a (Simulink)

Objectives:

  • Rear wheels driven by PM brushed type motor
  • Assume efficiency points of motor controller and motor
  • Make an excel sheet of all input and assumed data
  • Results: For any three standard driving cycles show energy consumption, temperature rise of motor and controller.

Block Diagram:

In the designed Electric Rickshaw main blocks are Battery, drive cycle, controller, DC Motor, Vehicle body & Transmission system. Drive cycle is the input data like how a human drive his actual vehicle here FTP75, WOT & Excel (Manually Prepared in Excel sheet) drive cycles are used to make the designed vehicle to give the output how it reacts to the drive cycle. The main objective is to obtain the speed by the driver, to estimate the temperature of Motor and Controller, to estimate the sates of charge (SOC), distance travelled by the vehicle. There is a SOC block that will estimate the state of charge of a battery, distance is calculated by speed and time parameters for all the three Drive cycles.

MATLAB Model of an Electric Rickshaw:

Initially the current flows to DC Motor from the battery through the DC-DC power converter to drive the motor. The required voltage will be controlled in the controller. The Controller will follow the given drive cycle reference and run the motor in the required rpm. Then the motor power is transmitted to the wheels of a vehicle through the gear box. and the controller will take the vehicle speed and compare and controlled.

Model parameters:

Drive Cycle:

Drive cycle is assumed as the driver's input of a vehicle, it replaced how a driver will drive a vehicle. Here I have used three drive cycles which is used to test the vehicle performances. These drive cycle will have high speed, low speed, braking conditions in it. There are different drive cycles like WOT, FTP75 etc., Here in this model I have used FTP 75, WOT & Manually prepared in excel Drive Cycle source.

FTP 75:

Generates a standard or user-specified longitudinal drive cycle. The block output is the vehicle longitudinal speed. You can import drive cycles from:

- Predefined sources

- Workspace variables, including arrays and time series objects

- mat, xls, xlsx, or txt files

Use the fault tracking parameters to identify drive cycle faults within specified speed and time tolerances.

Wide Open Throttle (WOT):

Driver Controller:

A parametric longitudinal speed tracking controller for generating normalized acceleration and braking commands based on reference and feedback velocities.

Use the external actions to input signals that can disable, hold, or override the closed-loop commands determined by the block. The block uses this priority for the input commands: disable, hold, override.

Drive cycle is connected to a longitudinal driver, it has six ports namely velocity reference, velocity feedback, grade, info, Acceleration, Deceleration.

VelRef is given by the drive cycle data and VelFdbk is given by the output of the motor. These two will get compare and the acceleration or deceleration output will be given to the motor controller. Accelcmd is given the PWM generator block and deccelcmd is given to the regenerative port of the h-bridge which uses to generate regenerative braking. Info is used to get any other data from a longitudinal driver block. The grade is to give the input of gradeability to the driver block. This block helps to generate regerate the driver's conditions of the vehicle using the driver cycle block.

  • I used default parameters and control type PI

Motor & Controller:

  1. Motor type: DC Motor (PM brushed type motor)

This block represents the electrical and torque characteristics of a DC motor includes Thermal port to sence the temperature of Motor.

The block assumes that no electromagnetic energy is lost, and hence the back-emf and torque constants have the same numerical value when in SI units. Motor parameters can either be specified directly, or derived from no-load speed and stall torque. If no information is available on armature inductance, this parameter can be set to some small non-zero value.

When a positive current flow from the electrical + to - ports, a positive torque acts from the mechanical C to R ports. Motor torque direction can be changed by altering the sign of the back-emf or torque constants.

  1. Controlled PWM Voltage source:

This block creates a Pulse-Width Modulated (PWM) voltage across the PWM and REF ports. The output voltage is zero when the pulse is low, and is equal to the Output voltage amplitude parameter when high. Duty cycle is set by the input value. Right-click the block and select Simscape->Block choices to switch between electrical +ref/-ref ports and PS input u to specify the input value.

At time zero, the pulse is initialized as high unless the duty cycle is set to zero or the Pulse delay time is greater than zero.

The Simulation mode can be set to PWM or Averaged. In PWM mode, the output is a PWM signal. In Averaged mode, the output is constant with value equal to the averaged PWM signal.

Select Simulation mode as Averaged.

  1. Power Converter:

H-Bridge:

H-Bridge is used as a DC-DC converter.

This block represents an H-bridge motor drive. The block can be driven by the Controlled PWM Voltage block in PWM or Averaged mode. In PWM mode, the motor is powered if the PWM port voltage is above the Enable threshold voltage. In Averaged mode, the PWM port voltage divided by the PWM signal amplitude parameter defines the ratio of the on-time to the PWM period. Using this ratio and assumptions about the load, the block applies an average voltage to the load that achieves the correct average load current. The Simulation mode parameter value must be the same for the Controlled PWM Voltage and H-Bridge blocks.

If the REV port voltage is greater than the Reverse threshold voltage, then the output voltage polarity is reversed. If the BRK port voltage is greater than the Braking threshold voltage, then the output terminals are short circuited via one bridge arm in series with the parallel combination of a second bridge arm and a freewheeling diode. Voltages at ports PWM, REV and BRK are defined relative to the REF port.

If exposing the power supply connections, the block only supports PWM mode.

  1. Temperature Sensor:

Temperature Sensor is used to mesure the temperature of H-Bridge and Motor.

This block measures temperature in a thermal network. There is no heat flow through the sensor. The physical signal port T reports the temperature difference across the sensor. The measurement is positive when the temperature at port A is greater than the temperature at port B.

  1. Solver Configuration:

Defines solver settings to use for simulation.

  1. References
  • Electrical Reference: Used to ground the all the electrical connections.
  • Mechanical Rotational Reference: Used to ground all the mechanical rotational parts.
  • Thermal Reference: Used to ground the thermal sensor.

Battery:

Battery Parameters:

Battery Type

Lithium ion

Nominal Voltage

330V

Rated capacity

75 Ah

Initial SoC%

100

Internal Resistance

0.0012 ohm

The battery is required to power the controller and motor. The controller uses the battery power according to produce the input given by the motor to obtain maximum speed. The battery is also used to power every electrical component in the vehicle. The battery has two stage one is charging and another one is discharging state. The battery is of 75Ah capacity.

The Nominal voltage of battery is 330 V

Initial SoC is of 100%

The battery as a series internal resistance plus a charge-dependent voltage source defined by:

`V = (Vnom*SoC)/(1-beta*(1-SoC))`

where SoC is the state of charge and Vnom is the nominal voltage. Coefficient beta is calculated to satisfy a user-defined data point [AH1,V1].

The battery has a positive and negative terminal which is given the voltage-controlled source where the battery consumption is controlled by the motor controller and then it is given to the SOC block.

Conclusion:

  • Here I have compromised with the temperature of Motor and controller to achieve vehicle speed is near to reference speeds. Since I haven’t used any cooling system in the model. In the real time application, the motor temperature is less than 1000C.
  • In the real time application, the motor, battery & controller temperature is controlled by air cooling. Hence, the temperature of this components is not increased to this extent.
  • Hence, Created a MATLAB model of an Electric Rickshaw (three wheel passenger vehicle) by using Li-ion battery, PM Brushed DC Motor.
  • Detremined the variations of Temperature of Motor and controller, SoC% and Energy consumed by the by vehicle for all the three Reference Drive cycles (i.e.; FTP75, WOT, Manually prepared).
  • This Battery powered Rickshaw will be the most popular mode of transport in the future.
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