Design and Control of Hybrid Vehicles Research

Hybridisation of combustion engine driven vehicles can be made in a number of different ways and with a wide span of different combinations of electric power and energy level. There is no single solution that is best for all types of vehicles and drive cycles. Thus a capability to understand the specific requirements of a certain type of vehicle in a specific application is needed.
The research focus is on system modelling and optimization of both the suitable power and energy level for the electric drive systems involved in a vehicle drive train as well as the topology, i.e. the localisation of the electrical drive in the drive train. A strong link to the specialisation in electrical machine and drives design gives this research direct a very sharp edge in identifying the most suitable hybrid drive technology for any application.

Current projects

SpeedShift

A project about electrical drive design and hybrid control in a car transmission with a robotized single clutch mechanical transmission where the electrical drive, apart from being a good hybrid traction system, also takes part in the gearbox synchronisatuion for minimizing gear shifting times. Today we reach gear shifting times (torque interrupts) in the interval 10…100 ms.

Rear Axis Drives

A project about electric drives design for an electric rear axis drive where electrical machine design, power electronic design and mechanical (and thermal!) design are optimized together. Silicon Carbide designs is a special branch of this project. The outcome is an industrial product, the first of which is already winter tested in vehicle.

EMC

In this particular project we investigate the relation between physical layout of a hybrid drive system and the power electronic control and modulation method with respect to common mode conducted disturbances and system stability.

SM2C machine design

In this project we build and evaluate a number of electrical drives (most related to automotive) made with composite materials in the magnetic core and produced in a specific moulding process developed in Lund. The outcome is machines with a potentially low production cost and high efficiency.

Thermal design

In this project we study cooling system optimisation for electrical drives, not least the use of non conventional cooling methods.