A dynamic programming approach for energy management in hybrid electric vehicles under uncertain driving conditions

This paper addresses the limited adaptability and the computational burden of energy management systems (EMSs) for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) implemented via dynamic programming (DP)-based approaches. First, a deterministic dynamic programming (DDP) framework is presented to solve HEV EMS problems subject to a specific driving cycle. To address this limitation, an improved DDP approach, integrating the actual travelled position of the vehicle into the control law, is proposed. This way, a given DDP-based EMS can be applied to all the driving cycles, yet still measured on the same road. Stochastic dynamic programming (SDP)-based EMSs are also developed and prove to be more adaptive to driving scenarios completely different from the ones used for their computation. Real-world driving cycles are employed in all the presented cases, while a reduced HEV powertrain model is used to alleviate the typical DP computational burden.