Design of A Parallel-Series PHEV For The EcoCAR 2 Competition

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2012-01-1762
Published 09/10/2012
Copyright 2012 SAE International
doi:10.4271/2012-01-1762
saefuel.saejournals.org
Design of a Parallel-Series PHEV for the EcoCAR 2

Competition
Katherine Bovee, Amanda Hyde, Shawn Midlam-Mohler, Giorgio Rizzoni, Matthew Yard, Travis
Trippel, Matthew Organiscak, Andrew Garcia, Eric Gallo, Mark Hornak, Andrew Palmer and
Josh Hendricks
Ohio State University
ABSTRACT
The EcoCAR 2: Plugging into the Future team at the Ohio State University is designing a Parallel-Series Plug-in
Hybrid Electric Vehicle capable of 50 miles of all-electric range. The vehicle features a 18.9-kWh lithium-ion battery pack
with range extending operation in both series and parallel modes made possible by a 1.8-L ethanol (E85) engine and 6speed automated manual transmission. This vehicle is designed to drastically reduce fuel consumption, with a utility factor
weighted fuel economy of 75 miles per gallon gasoline equivalent (mpgge), while meeting Tier II Bin 5 emissions
standards. This report details the rigorous design process followed by the Ohio State team during Year 1 of the
competition. The design process includes identifying the team customer's needs and wants, selecting an overall vehicle
architecture and completing detailed design work on the mechanical, electrical and control systems. This effort was made
possible through support from the U.S. Department of Energy, General Motors, The Ohio State University, and numerous
competition and local sponsors.
CITATION: Bovee, K., Hyde, A., Midlam-Mohler, S., Rizzoni, G. et al., "Design of a Parallel-Series PHEV for the
EcoCAR 2 Competition," SAE Int. J. Fuels Lubr. 5(3):2012, doi:10.4271/2012-01-1762.
____________________________________
INTRODUCTION
a stock GM transmission with custom actuators and control

software for the clutch and shifting.
The Ohio State University EcoCAR 2 Challenge Team is

a multi-disciplinary team consisting of more than 40 students.
The team has members ranging from high-school students to
Ph.D. students who participate in a wide variety of
engineering, business, and outreach tasks. As described in
this report, the team's progress through a rigorous vehicle
development process has led to the design of a unique vehicle
for the EcoCAR 2 Challenge. The final selected architecture
and vehicle technical specifications can be found in Appendix
F and Appendix B respectively. The design features:
Aggressive Electric Operation - Customer requirements

drove the team to design a vehicle with high all-electric range
(>40 miles) and high all-electric performance.
VEHICLE DESIGN PROCESS

VDP Overview
A simplified Vehicle Development Process (VDP) was
presented to the EcoCAR 2 teams by the competition
organizers at Fall Workshop, which is shown in Figure 1. The
team used this process and unified it with the V-Diagram
process used for design of complex systems, of which the
team's EcoCAR 2 vehicle is an excellent example.
The team's VDP V-diagram can be found in Appendix A
and shows the process that will be followed by the Ohio State
team to develop both the controls system and powertrain for
the vehicle. The left side of the V-diagram represents the
vehicle design process, while the right side of the diagram
represents the realization and validation process. The two
sides are connected at the bottom with the component
realization step, where the design steps from the left side are
Multi-Mode Operation: The vehicle's design allows for

operation in series, parallel, or all-electric operation. The
vehicle's supervisory control performs real-time optimization
of the vehicle's engine and two electric motors.
High-Efficiency E85 Internal Combustion Engine: The
team has converted a high-compression ratio natural gas
engine to operate on E85 resulting in greater than 40% brake
thermal efficiency.
Automated Manual Transmission: The team has chosen to
develop an automated manual transmission. The system uses
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implemented in the vehicle and then validated using the steps

on the right side. Validation plans also flow from the left side
of the V-diagram to the right, which provides the tools to
evaluate if the realized designs meet the required design
objectives.
rules for the execution of this particular test since it is a

competition event. The document also captures how higherlevel requirements trickle down into subsystems and includes
hardware as well as supervisory control software.
The other document the team has developed acts as a
supplement to the TP&P document that is specifically for
controls related tracking. This is the Supervisory Control,
SIL, and HIL Development Document. The purpose of this
document is to track and document key decisions in the
supervisory control development process, SIL activities, HIL
activities, and fault diagnosis work. The document highlights
progress, plans, and data in the following key areas of the
control development: Control Requirements, System
Architecture, Control Algorithms, Strategies, and Diagnostic
Algorithms, Safety Critical Systems, Verification and
Validation, Systems Integration, and DFMEA/FTA Results.
VDP Deviations
Figure 1. EcoCAR 2 Vehicle Development Process
VDP Implementation
The key to the OSU implementation of the design process
is that it explicitly combines the three swim lanes of
development into a unified diagram for electrical,
mechanical, and controls efforts. On the way down the Vdiagram, component design tasks form the critical path. Once
a design decision is made, software design tasks then occur in
the yellow area in the diagram. For instance, once the vehicle
architecture is defined, it is possible to start the design tasks
related to the vehicle control software. As subsystems and
eventually components are defined on the critical path, the
associated work on controls can begin.
On the implementation path, the right side of the diagram,
controls realization is the critical path. It is usually not
possible to fully validate a powertrain component or system
until controls are available, thus the controls must be realized
prior to full validation of the hardware. Because the control
design and development was already started (in the yellow
area), control hardware, software, and calibrations should be
ready by the time hardware is actually realized. This
approach accelerates the pace of vehicle development and is
heavily reliant upon the use of SIL and HIL techniques to
allow controls development without availability of hardware.
In terms of the specifics of the implementation, the OSU
team maintains several documents that allow the team to
track progress. The first document the team has developed is
a Test Plan and Procedures (TP&P) document which tracks
the propagation of design and control requirements as they
cascade through the various subsystems in the vehicle. The
TP&P document is structured from the high-level
requirements of the vehicle. By way of example, the vehicle
has a 0-60 mph time target and references the competition
The team did not have any major deviations in the VDP
process in Year 1. In a few cases, nearly completed
subsystem designs have required extensive rework due to
design objective conflicts between subsystems. In particular,
the design of subsystems within the rear powertrain proved to
be a challenge. The rear electric motor system, the energy
storage system, and the cargo capacity aspect of consumer
acceptability were all in competition for vehicle space. This
was compounded by the fact that there are waiver issues
involved due to structural modifications of the vehicle. In the
end, the competition objectives of these three subsystems
were managed by adhering to OSU's VDP process to make
the best trade-off possible. This is discussed in greater detail
in the Packaging and System Integration section of this
report.
Current VDP Status

From a software perspective, the team is currently in the
HIL Control Testing/Validation phase of the V-diagram.
Software for each of the three team-developed controls is
running in the target control hardware on the HIL, or in many
cases, with actual plant hardware.
For electrical and mechanical subsystem development, the
majority of projects are at the component or subsystem
implementation phase. By way of example, the team's
ambitious project to automate a manual transmission is well
underway. The actuation hardware is built and is being tested
with the developed control system prior to Year 1
competition. The team has already secured all other major
powertrain components and confirmed delivery during
summer of 2012.
Following the completion of the first year of EcoCAR 2,
the controls models for the vehicle supervisory control,
electrical and mechanical subsystems and component models
will be validated and ready to begin the next phase of the Vdiagram. In Year 2, the vehicle will be built and therefore
achieve realization of the electrical and mechanical
components and subsystems, as well as full, low-level control
implementation and basic high-level control functionality. In

Year 3, the team will focus on further refinement and
validation of the vehicle against the original targets set by the
team.
POWERTRAIN CONFIGURATION
The OSU architecture selection and process is broken into
four major phases: Problem Definition, Specification
Development, Concept Development, and Concept Selection.
Within each phase are more specific steps created to ensure
thorough background research and yield the best possible
architecture for the OSU team. The process is illustrated in
Appendix D.
Goals and Specification Developments

The team goals and specifications were set by identifying
the different customers of the OSU EcoCAR 2 team,
identifying the needs of each customer, and performing a
competitive vehicle benchmarking assessment. This is
represented in Appendix D as the Problem Definition phase.
The team identified four different customers for the Ohio
State EcoCAR 2 vehicle, listed below with a brief description
of the reason for their selection. This phase is crucial given
the inevitable tradeoffs that are necessary in designing a
vehicle.
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project content; 3) provide good research project content; 4)

provide good content for presentations; 5) vehicle has better
fuel economy, emissions, and performance than the stock
Chevrolet Malibu; 6) have strong ties to Ohio business
community; 7) be aesthetically attractive to target audiences;
8) have capability to place in top 5; 9) maximize score on
dynamic vehicle events; and 10) perform well on static
events.
Competitive Vehicle Assessment

In addition to identifying the customers and determining
each customer's unique needs and wants for the vehicle's
performance, the team performed a Competitive Vehicle
Assessment (CVA). The CVA is a way to benchmark the
team's vehicle against vehicles being sold in the same
segment as the Chevrolet Malibu (Affordable Midsize) as
well as in three other segments. The complete CVA lists
more than 20 key aspects collected from a variety of sources
that include the US News Buyers Guide, the US News
website, Yahoo Autos, vehicle manufacturer's websites,
motortrend.com, torquestats.com and zerotosixty.com.
OSU EcoCAR 2 Students: The vehicle designed by the

Ohio State team needs to have new and challenging aspects
that have not been done by the team before in order to allow
both new and returning team members to learn more about
hybrid vehicles.
Outreach Target Audiences: The vehicle designed, built and
tested by the Ohio State team needs to appeal to K-12
students, the general public, and influencers in a wide range
of fields. In the coming years, all three of these groups will
play a part in how hybrid vehicles are accepted into the
lifestyles of the American public.
EcoCAR 2 Judges: The Ohio State vehicle needs to impress
the judges in EcoCAR 2 since these judges are responsible
for assigning the team points based on everything from the
vehicle's technical merit to its static consumer acceptability.
EcoCAR 2 Event Scoring: The vehicle designed by the
Ohio State team needs to maximize the amount of points the
vehicle can receive in the Year 2 and 3 dynamic events.
These events score everything from the vehicle's fuel
economy to its performance and drivability.
Customer Needs and Wants

Each of the four different customer groups have different
needs and wants for the team. These needs and wants are
what eventually drive the concept selection and vehicle
technical specifications. The engineering, outreach, and
business team developed the following list for the four
defined customers: 1) apply knowledge gained in the
classroom to real world problems; 2) provide good design
Figure 2. Competitive Vehicle Assessment Summary

A few relevant parameters from the CVA that helped
determine the team's goals and specifications are shown in
Figure 2, namely: 0-60 time, trunk volume, city MPG, and
highway MPG. These stats helped guide the ultimate
selection of a target 0-60 time of 7 seconds as well as
providing justification of some loss in trunk volume due to
packaging constraints. Because of the relatively large stock
trunk volume of the 2013 Malibu, some intrusion into this
space would not be out of line with competing vehicles.
Establish Vehicle Design Specs

The next phase of the selection process shown in
Appendix D involves developing metrics to rank different
concept designs. These are similar to the VTS targets for the
vehicle, but include a number of non-technical factors as
well. The five categories of metrics in the table are:
performance, consumer acceptability, risk, educational value,
and Ohio focus. These metrics, in addition to the eventual
scoring results discussed later, are shown in Appendix E. The
weighting for each of the metrics was determined by the
EcoCAR 2 scoring system as well as the team's own goals.
The composite fuel economy and the upstream/downstream
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emission metrics were given weightings of 10 since the total

of those two events are worth 30-34% of the points in Years 2
and 3 of the competition. The remaining metrics were
assigned weights in a similar fashion to form a decision
matrix. As mentioned above, these are not the full set of
vehicle technical specifications at this point in the process.
hydrogen fueled vehicle was not considered further by the

team. If the use of hydrogen as a fuel is eliminated as an
option, the best remaining fuel combination shown in Figure
3 is the E85 PHEV. This decision is consistent with the
design process as it matches the customer needs and wants
defined earlier.
Architecture Selection Process

High Level Component Design Decisions
The results of the process described above led to a list of
quantitative metrics against which to evaluate the candidate
architectures. However, the large freedom in the design space
made it difficult to systematically define possible
architectures. Free design options include: 1) fuels; 2) energy
storage capacity; 3) operating modes (i.e. series, parallel); 4)
component sizes; and other such options.
In order to reduce the number of free design variables in
the architecture selection process, the team made high-level
design decisions at the start of the architecture selection
process to reduce the design parameters that needed to be
optimized in the modeling and simulation portion of the
process. The key decisions were largely made with respect to
fuel and critical components and are consistent with the
Customer Needs/Wants and Vehicle Design Specifications
determined in the second phase of the process shown in in
Appendix D. Reducing the number of free parameters
narrows the design space sufficiently to allow rigorous
simulation studies to be used to evaluate concept vehicles.
To select fuel type and ESS capacity, the team essentially
conducted a virtual EcoCAR 2 competition amongst a host of
vehicle types using Argonne National Lab's Greenhouse
Gases, Regulated Emissions and Energy Use in
Transportation (GREET) Model. The team used the GREET
model to analyze how each of the different fuel combinations
allowed in the EcoCAR 2 competition would affect their final
score in the EcoCAR 2 Emissions and Energy Consumption
event, which is the highest scoring event in the competition.
Once all calculations were completed, each fuel type was
scored using the EcoCAR 2 competition's normalized scoring
method, which scales the points awarded to each team based
on the highest and lowest scores.
This analysis considered the following vehicles: a
conventional vehicle with E10, E10 HEV, E10 PHEV, a
conventional vehicle with dedicated E85, dedicated E85
HEV, E85 PHEV, conventional B20, B20 HEV, B20 PHEV,
and a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle. The analysis also
considered the impact of varying all-electric range on the
performance of the vehicle via the utility factor concept used
by the competition.
Based on the results in Figure 3, the hydrogen fuel-cell
vehicle would be the best choice for earning points at the
competition based on its excellent petroleum use reduction
and WTW GHG emissions reduction. However, hydrogen is
not well-aligned to the research goals of the team or Ohio
State's Center for Automotive Research. Therefore, a
Figure 3. Estimated Total Competition Score for Fuel

Based on the choice of E85, the team decided to use a
1.8L high compression ratio Honda engine in order to take
advantage of E85's high octane rating to get better efficiency
from the engine. This was a practical result of the team's
previous experience with this engine and the fact that it
represents a best-in-class efficiency for a SI engine at 40%
brake thermal efficiency. Note that these design decisions
also support the Customer Needs/Wants, specifically having
better fuel economy and emissions than the stock Malibu,
having strong ties to the Ohio business community,
performing well on static competition events, and providing
good content for presentations, design projects, and research
projects.
Figure 4. Estimated Total Fuel Economy and Emission

Scores for Varying Charge Depleting Ranges
As seen in Figure 4, increasing the charge depleting range
of the vehicle has a significant effect on raising the overall
score for the EcoCAR 2 Emissions and Energy Consumption
event. Therefore, it is desired to maximize the charge
depleting range of the vehicle by maximizing the capacity of
its battery pack. This led the team to select the largest battery
pack A123 was willing to donate to the team, which was an
18.9 kW-hr battery pack.
Concept Development
With the fuel, engine, and ESS system already defined,
the team was able to focus on developing concepts in a
manageable design space. As shown in Appendix D, this is a
multistep process. In the Internal Concept Search phase of
this process, the team started developing concept
architectures over the summer of 2011, using a collaborative
and private wiki website hosted by OSU to capture ideas
from the returning team members who were at various
locations on internships. The External Concept Search
involved conducting a thorough literature review of relevant
topics containing more than 60 references and a review of the
publications and performance of top EcoCAR and ChallengeX team designs. The team used these results in the Search
Result Synthesis section to understand what attributes and
systems would deliver the best possible design.
Candidate Hybrid Vehicle Architectures

The outcome of the Concept Selection Process was four
different architectures that the team felt would best satisfy the
Vehicle Design Specs, and thus, the customer needs/wants.
These four vehicle architectures are: 1) a series PHEV; 2) a
post-transmission PHEV; 3) a pre-transmission PHEV; 4) a
parallel-series PHEV. Vehicles (1) through (3) are wellknown architectures. A diagram of architecture (4) is shown
in the Appendix F. Descriptions of each of the candidate
architectures are given in Table 1.
Table 1. Candidate Architectures
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For each of these vehicles, Argonne National Lab's

Autonomie software was used to simulate the different
vehicle architectures in addition to the stock vehicle as a
baseline. The team also completed initial packaging studies
on each vehicle to ensure the powertrain components they
wanted to use could be packaged inside a conventional 2013
Chevrolet Malibu. The hybrid vehicle architectures
considered by the team were also compared back to the
conventional vehicle in order estimate how much of an
improvement in fuel economy the hybrid vehicles would
have.
Vehicle Model Setup

All four of the hybrid vehicle models used the same
customized initialization files for the engine and battery pack.
The engine initialization file was modified to reflect the 1.8L
E85 Honda engine that the team had selected using data
gathered by the team in the dynamometer test cell. The
battery initialization file was modified to reflect the 18.9 kWhr pack that A123 would donate to the team using the data
provided by A123. All four hybrid vehicle models also used
the UQM electric machine initialization files that were preloaded in Autonomie. The team decided to use all UQM
electric machines in order to maintain some consistency
across the four hybrid vehicle models, since a supplier for the
electric machines had not yet been identified. These maps
were scaled to achieve the desired power characteristics.
Once the model for each vehicle was set up, the gear
ratios, control strategy parameters and electric machine size
were all optimized to give each model the best possible
acceleration time and fuel economy. The team did multiple
parametric studies on each of the four hybrid vehicle models
to learn how the gear ratios, control strategy parameters and
electric machine size affected the vehicle's performance and
fuel economy numbers. The results of the parametric studies
allowed the team to select a set of parameters that had the
best balance between acceleration times and high fuel
economy.
Simulation Results
The acceleration and fuel economy results from the
Autonomie simulations of the hybrid vehicles and the
conventional Malibu are listed in Table 2. All four hybrid
vehicle architectures had significantly better fuel economy
than the conventional Malibu. These fuel economy numbers
ranged from 63.5 mpgge for the pre-transmission PHEV to
72.3 mpgge for the parallel-series PHEV vehicle. All the
hybrid vehicles also had all-electric ranges greater than 44
miles which gave then utility factors of 0.654 or greater. The
parallel-series PHEV had the longest all-electric range of 50
miles.
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Table 2. Vehicle Simulation Results
In addition to the good fuel economy and all-electric

range numbers, most of the hybrid vehicles had better
acceleration times than the conventional vehicle. This was by
design, as this was a feature that was identified in the
customer needs/wants analysis.
Decision Matrix
The results of the vehicle simulations were used with the
results of the packaging studies to determine which of the
four possible hybrid vehicle architectures best meet the team's
goals and specifications found the previous section of this
report. The decision matrix used to evaluate each of the four
architectures is shown in Appendix E. The reference vehicles
used in the decision matrix are the conventional Chevrolet
Malibu vehicle and the twin-clutch E-REV vehicle built by
Ohio State in the EcoCAR 1 competition. The conventional
Chevrolet Malibu was used as the reference for the
performance and consumer acceptability metrics while the
twin-clutch E-REV was used as the reference for the risk,
education, and Ohio focus metrics.
The results of the decision matrix in Appendix E show
that the parallel-series PHEV vehicle is the best hybrid
vehicle architecture choice for the Ohio State team. The
simulation results showed the parallel-series PHEV had the
best composite fuel economy out of all four vehicles along
with the longest all-electric range. Additionally, the parallelseries PHEV had better packaging attributes to it than the
series hybrid and post-transmission PHEV due to the
separation of the two motors into two locations.
It was also felt that there was additional performance to
be obtained for the parallel-series PHEV as the Autonomie
model developed did not take full advantage of all of the
operating modes available to the parallel-series PHEV. By
way of example, the model did not optimally balance the use
of the electric motors nor did it take advantage of the series
mode that is available to the vehicle. These extra elements of
functionality could not be developed in the short time
available for architecture selection - nor did they materially
select the decision as it would only strengthen the parallelseries performance.
Powertrain Component Selection

Based on the discussion above, the selection of the energy
storage system and the engine were decisions made upstream
of the architecture selection process. These decisions were
made based on sound analysis of the design goals of the
project. The remaining major powertrain components include

the front electric motor and inverter, rear electric motor and
inverter, rear transaxle, and front transmission.
The simulation study provided targets for component
specifications for the remaining powertrain components.
These included: torque and power specifications for the
electric motors; gear ratio for the rear drive; desired gear
ratios range for the transmission; and a number of other
requirements. Additionally, major systems already selected
provided constraints, such as the battery voltage range which
impacted inverter and motor selection.
Beyond technical requirements, business issues also
impacted component selection - primarily in the form of team
budget constraints. The team was fortunate to be able to
partner with Parker-Hannifin for both permanent magnet
motors and inverters. They provided a limited range of
options; however, they matched quite well with the targets.
The transmission selection was driven by a number of factors,
and is discussed in great detail in the Packaging and
Integration section. The last major component was the rear
transaxle. In this case, a deeply discounted unit was secured
from Borg-Warner which matched the desired ratio from the
design simulations.
A detailed packaging study has also driven both the
choice of major components and their orientation in the Ohio
State vehicle. The major components influencing the vehicle
design are given in Table 3 through
Table 3. Front Powertrain Component Summary
Table 4. Rear Powertrain Component Summary
Table 5. Energy Storage Component Summary
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team determined that none of the available transmissions

would both package in the vehicle and meet the max torque
requirements. The team opted to accept a lower max torque
requirement from the front powertrain, however, the rear
electric motor was increased in size to make up for the
reduction.
4. Rear Powertrain - The major tradeoffs in packaging the
rear axle powertrain were: intrusion on trunk space, intrusion
on cabin space, and interference with structural vehicle
members. These issues were compounded by the
requirements of a larger motor in the rear driven by the
transmission issue described in (3) above. This tradeoff is
discussed in greater detail later in the report; however, the
eventual tradeoff was deemed appropriate given the team's
design goals.
Powertrain Configuration Summary

The parallel-series PHEV architecture selected by the
Ohio State team has the following characteristics that make it
the right choice for the Ohio State team. The final step in the
process outlined in Appendix D is the generation of VTS
targets for the actual vehicle. These VTS targets are an
outcome of this process, most of which are derived from the
simulation model that was developed. Key features include:
Key Tradeoffs in Powertrain Design

As described in the previous sections, OSU followed a
rigorous design process in order to develop the best possible
design based on the constraints. Some of the key tradeoffs
discussed and a summary of the impact are captured in the
following list. In the relevant subsections, many more
tradeoffs are discussed at the subsystem and component level.
1. Fuel Choice: Analysis demonstrated that hydrogen was
actually a better choice based on competition point
structure; however, the team did not choose this fuel. Instead,
E85 and electricity were chosen as the best fuels for the team.
Hydrogen poses a high financial cost for hardware as well as
high technical risk - the team's design process penalized these
risks in favor of E85. As shown in Figure 3 and Figure 4, the
combination of E85 and electricity are the next strongest
choice and align with the team's interest and experience.
2. Energy Storage System Size: Based on the analysis
leading to Figure 4, the team's choice of the largest available
A123 Systems battery pack was justified. The larger pack
offered with it a higher weight and packaging volume as a
trade-off. The team's early packaging analysis proved that the
pack could be integrated with no loss of passenger space and
a moderate loss of trunk space. A decision matrix analysis
proved that this tradeoff was justified for the competition.
3. Front Powertrain - The front axle powertrain presented
several key tradeoffs, the most notable of which was selection
of a transmission that would fit within the width of the
vehicle with the selected architecture. After reviewing
specifications and CAD on a number of transmissions, the
Ability to operate in charge depleting, charge sustaining

series, and charge sustaining parallel operation
Robust, fault tolerant design
Challenging mechanical, electrical, and control system
design problems
Team-programmed engine, transmission, and vehicle
supervisory controllers
50 mile all-electric range
CONTROLS DEVELOPMENT
PROCESS
Control Development Process
The controls development process is illustrated by the
yellow area of the V-Diagram given in Appendix A. The
development of controls software has occurred in tandem
with the powertrain design throughout the entire vehicle
design process. First, requirements were defined for highlevel supervisory controls followed by subsystem controls
and low-level controls. Next, hardware and software designs
were developed for each level of controls. HIL validation and
testing is being performed on all of the vehicle controls
before in-vehicle implementation during Year 2.
Control Development Tools

A variety of control development tools are employed by
the Ohio State team throughout the control development
process. The entire control system was designed and
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constructed using MATLAB and Simulink, employing a

variety of toolboxes contained within these powerful tools. In
addition to these tools, dSPACE's Hardware-In-the-Loop
simulator was used to develop and validate the control
system.
The team employed professional tools to conduct Fault
Tree Analysis (FTA) and Design Failure Mode and Effects
Analysis (DFMEA, using Isograph's Reliability Workbench
with FaultTree+ to conduct FTA, and Byteworx FMEA
software to carry out DFMEA.
To determine test coverage for the control models, The
Mathworks/Simulink Design Verifier and Model Coverage
tools are being used. Both are tools built into MATLAB and
Simulink for analyzing Simulink models. Design Verifier
ensures that all portions of the model are accessible and
allows the team to test and prove various properties of the
model. The Model Coverage tool measures how thoroughly
model objects are tested by determining how many of all
possible simulation pathways in the model have been
exercised during a test. This will ensure that all of the code in
the controllers has been validated through SIL and HIL
before implementation in the vehicle.
on the team's HIL equipment, but they will be implemented

by the Year 1 competition in May 2012.
Table 6. Models and Hardware used by the Ohio State
EcoCAR 2 Team
Plant Model Development for SIL/HIL

The Ohio State team uses a combination of self-developed
models and detailed dSPACE component models in the SIL
and HIL environments for control development and fault
testing purposes. Table 6 contains a description of the plant
model components, lists their state in both SIL and HIL
development, identifies the source of the model, and lists the
reasons the features were implemented into the plant model.
The Software-in-the-Loop models used by the team are
mostly self-developed and are combined into a single energy
based simulator called EcoSIM. EcoSIM is an energy based
hybrid vehicle simulator developed by Ohio State teams over
the span of over 15 years through FutureCAR, FutureTruck,
ChallengeX and EcoCAR competitions, and is adaptable to
different hybrid powertrains. The EcoSIM simulator contains
models for each of the powertrain components that consist of
static maps, simple transfer functions and simplified soft
ECU's. EcoSIM in the SIL environment is especially useful
for testing the effectiveness of new control algorithms at
improving fuel economy.
The Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) models are used with
the team's dSPACE HIL equipment to test the CAN
communication between the different team programmed
controllers and test the controller's response to fault
conditions within the vehicle. The sources for the individual
powertrain component models range from the team
programmed models taken from EcoSIM to the detailed ASM
models created by dSPACE for the engine, transmission and
battery components. The detailed ASM models have many of
the sensor/actuator signals found on a real vehicle, allowing
the team to conduct complex fault testing on their HIL
equipment before the controller code is implemented on the
vehicle. The detailed ASM models are not yet implemented
Finally, the team has also created detailed physics-based,

sub-system models for each of the research projects assigned
to students on the EcoCAR 2 team. These detailed subsystem models include CFD models for analyzing aero
improvements, a GT-Power model of the engine, and thermal
models of the powertrain components.
HIL Test Bench Setup

The Ohio State team's HIL system setup will be
partitioned into four separate cases, outlined in Figure 5 and
summarized in Table 7. This will allow validation from the
sub-system controller level to the entire controller network
that will be developed by the team. Each of these cases has a
specific purpose, to test and validate the three OSU-coded
controllers as highlighted in Table 7. OSU will be
demonstrating the most aggressive case, Case 4, at Year 1

Competition Finals.
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Table 8. Requirements for Control Architecture and

Team Programmed Controllers
Figure 5. HIL Setup Cases

Table 7. HIL Simulation Setup
Controls Development Process Summary

Due to the complexity of the Ohio State team's vehicle
architecture and control architecture, an aggressive SIL and
HIL development plan is necessary to ensure a robust control
system that is ready for implementation in the vehicle.
CONTROL SYSTEM
ARCHITECTURE
Control Architecture Design Process
The requirements for the vehicle's control system
architecture, supervisory control algorithm and hardware for
the supervisory, engine and transmission controllers are listed
in Table 8. These high-level qualitative requirements are used
to guide the selection process and eventually lead to
engineering specifications.
These requirements were derived from the needs/wants
the team had for each of the different controllers and the
team's previous experience in the EcoCAR competition. The
I/O requirements for the engine, supervisory and
transmission/general control module hardware were derived
from detailed the I/O lists based on plant hardware. The
requirements for each controller are used in the control
architecture section to select the vehicle architecture and
controller hardware for the Ohio State vehicle.
Control System Architecture

The control system architecture chosen by the Ohio State
team is shown in Figure 6. The control architecture includes a
high level vehicle supervisory controller that manages vehicle
mode operation and the power split between the different
powertrain components. Three different CAN networks are
then used for communication between the vehicle's
supervisory controller and the lower level controllers used to
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Figure 6. Ohio State Control System Architecture

control individual powertrain components like the engine and
the electric machines.
The Ohio State team chose this specific control system
architecture by comparing the control system requirements
listed in Table 8 to different control system architecture
concepts they developed. The final control system
architecture show in Figure 6 was chosen because its modular
design can easily accommodate modifications to the control
system and its hierarchical structure allows a single controller
to manage all the lower level component controllers in an
organized manner. The chosen control system architecture is
also tolerant to fault conditions and is compatible with the
team's engine dynamometer, HIL and vehicle testing.
The control architecture chosen by the Ohio State team
has several strengths and weaknesses associated with it. The
strengths include:
controllers, the team considered dSPACE, Woodward, ETAS

and National Instruments hardware. The team considered
non-sponsored controllers, however, the donated controllers
matched very well with the team's control needs. When this
was factored in with the technical support provided by the
sponsors and the fiscal advantages, the team did not seriously
consider any other controllers. Details on each of these key
decisions are listed in Table 9.
Distributed hardware
development.
Supervisory Controller Selection
architecture
facilitates
parallel
Use of team-developed powertrain controllers increase the

flexibility of the system - the team can add new functionality
as needed.
Use of team-developed powertrain controllers minimizes
interfacing with controllers containing unknown parameters.
Some weaknesses include:
Heavy reliance upon CAN for critical communication
between controllers which allows for a single wiring failure
to disable the vehicle
Increased development time and technical risk due to three
team-developed controllers
Control System Hardware

The hardware used for the supervisory, engine and
transmission/general control modules was also selected using
the requirements listed in Table 8. The hardware is selected
in conjunction with software requirements, all of which is
driven by higher level vehicle requirements. For each of the
Table 9. Controllers Component Summary
The dSPACE MicroAutoBox II (MABX-II) was chosen

for the vehicle's supervisory controller due to the following
strengths:
Large amount of computing power
Ability to compile and flash code quickly
Long record of reliability with the Ohio State team
One weakness of the MABX-II is its cost. However,
dSPACE has donated one MABX-II to the team for their HIL
setup and the team has set aside enough money in their team
budget to purchase an additional MABX-II. The second
major weakness is that it is not ruggedized for installation
aggressive areas, such as the engine compartment. The
Control Algorithm and Strategy section contains more
information on the algorithms used on the MicroAutoBox II
to determine what mode of operation the vehicle is in and
how the torque request is split between the different
powertrain components.
Engine Controller Selection

The team decided to choose the ETAS FlexECU as the
vehicle's engine controller. This ECU was chosen because it
best meets the Ohio State team's requirements for the engine
controller hardware. Also, the ETAS FlexECU will enable
the team to achieve the control algorithm requirements and
vehicle technical specifications listed in the Engine Control
section of this document. Some strengths of the controller
are:
Ability to be packaged in the aggressive environment of the
engine bay
Donated component reduces cost and comes with
guaranteed technical support
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A123 Battery Controller: Manages operation of battery

pack and high voltage electrical system. Interfaces over CAN
to supervisory controller.
Brake Controller: Controls brake operation when given
input on the brake pedal by driver. Sends friction brake status
over CAN to supervisory controller.
Body Controller: Interfaces with vehicle body while
communicating wheel pulses and vehicle speed over CAN to
the supervisory controller.
Front Electric Motor Controller: Controls speed of front
electric motor when given torque requests by the supervisory
controller. Interfaces over CAN to supervisory controller.
Large amount of engine-specific input/output support

Some weaknesses include:
Rear Electric Motor Controller: Controls speed of rear

electric motor when given torque requests by the supervisory
controller. Interfaces over CAN to supervisory controller.
Requires existing engine code to be redesigned for

FlexECU software blocks
Control System Architecture Summary
Requires a complete redesign of the existing engine wiring

harness
General Controller Selection

The 128-pin Woodward ECU was selected for
transmission/general control module controller due to its
ability to be packaged in an engine bay and wide variety of
input/output.
Specifically, the high current H-bridge outputs are critical
for driving the linear actuators required for shifting the
transmission. This is discussed in greater detail in the General
Control Module section of the Control Algorithm and
Strategy section. Some strengths of the controller are:
Ability to be packaged in the aggressive environment of the
engine bay
Donated component reduces cost and comes with
guaranteed technical support
Wide variety of I/O available for driving various actuators,
pumps, and fans throughout the vehicle
Some weaknesses of the controller are:
Reduced hardware capabilities compared to other
competition sponsored controller
Other Controllers
The vehicle design also relies on a variety of controllers
that manage individual vehicle subsystems, such as the
inverters and DC/DC converter. All low-level controllers
report to the supervisory controller, which manages the
overall operation of the vehicle. Benefits of this approach
include the ability to develop low-level controls on a persystem basis as well as facilitating a flexible hardware
configuration to accommodate modifications. The controllers
used in the vehicle that are not developed by the OSU team
are:
The Ohio State team's control system architecture was

designed to enable robust control of the complex hybrid
powertrain being implemented in the vehicle. The
requirements for each controller were driven by the team's
needs/wants and past experience. This led to the team's
decision to develop the supervisory controller, engine
controller, and general controller in-house and to utilize the
other component's stock controllers. This will allow the team
to implement a robust and customized control algorithm in
order to achieve the vehicle's VTS goals, defined in Appendix
B.
CONTROL ALGORITHM AND

STRATEGY
The team-programmed controllers include the vehicle's
supervisory controller, engine controller and general control
module. The vehicle's supervisory controller determines the
mode of operation of the vehicle and how the driver's power
demand is split up between the different powertrain
components. The engine controller is responsible for
controlling the engine to meet fuel economy and emissions
standards. The transmission controller is responsible for
controlling the actuators used to switch between gears in the
transmission, in addition to controlling different pumps/fans
in vehicle that are not associated with a specific controller.
In the following subsections, each of the three teamdeveloped controllers are discussed from the context of: 1)
Control Algorithm Requirements; 2) Control Strategy
Selection; 3) Control Strategy Description; and 4) Ability to
Meet Team/VTS Goals.
Supervisory Control
The first team-developed controller is the supervisory
control. The following sections highlight key information
regarding this controller.
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Control Algorithm Requirements

The Ohio State team started the control strategy
development process by identifying the needs/wants of the
team for the supervisory control algorithm. The team
concluded that the supervisory control algorithm should be
able to determine how much power the engine and two
electric machines need to provide to meet the driver's power
demand. The algorithm should also determine what mode of
operation the vehicle is in and select operating points for each
of the powertrain components that maximize each
component's efficiency to improve the fuel economy of the
overall vehicle. The needs/wants identified by the team led to
a series of technical specifications for the supervisory control
algorithm, which are listed in Table 8.
Control Algorithm Selection

Once the requirements for the supervisory control
algorithm were determined, the team researched different
control algorithms they could use. These algorithms included
rule-based algorithms, neural networks and an Equivalent
Consumption Minimization Strategy (ECMS). Benefits of
ECMS: 1) Provides nearly optimal control performance; 2)
Requires minimal calibration for the energy manager
function; 3) the team has experience with the algorithm.
Compromises from ECMS: 1) Very resource intensive on the
controller, which limits controller selection; 2) may lead to
drivability problems that must be handled outside of core
optimization algorithm; 3) requires accurate characterization
of powertrain components for optimization. The team
compared the advantages and disadvantages to each of the
control algorithms and selected the ECMS algorithm for their
vehicle's supervisory controller using a decision matrix. The
Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy (ECMS) has
been developed by former AVTC team members in
collaboration with faculty and research staff at Ohio State's
Center for Automotive Research. It was first implemented in
the Future Truck 2000 competition vehicle and has been
refined over the years to include adaptation to driving
conditions and to charge depleting strategies, as described in
Appendix C.
Appendix C. A rule-based strategy is used by the supervisory

controller to determine the vehicle mode of operation at any
point in time.
Unlike many rule-based strategies, the rules that govern
the transition to different modes are outcomes of the vehicle
architecture and therefore do not require extensive
calibration. Figure 7 shows how the Ohio State vehicle's
supervisory controller uses its rule based controller to switch
between charge depleting mode, engine start mode, charge
sustaining series mode, the series to parallel transition mode
and the charge sustaining parallel mode. The criteria used to
switch between modes include the battery SOC and the series
to parallel transition vehicle speed. The team decided against
using neural networks in their supervisory controller due to
the large amount of vehicle testing data needed to do the
initial calibration of the algorithms.
Figure 7. Supervisory Controller Mode State Machine

Representation
Examples of the vehicle over the US06 drive cycle in
charge sustaining mode are shown in and Figure 8.
Control Strategy Description

The Ohio State team's vehicle supervisory controller uses
a combination of rule-based algorithms and the Equivalent
Consumption Minimization Strategy (ECMS) to control the
vehicle.
The primary objective of ECMS is to find a local
minimum for an equivalent fuel metric while also satisfying a
number of equality and inequality constraints. These
constraints are imposed by the driver's power demand, the
actuator torque limitations, the high voltage battery state of
charge (SOC), and power availability and energy capacity
limitations. It then performs an optimization in realtime to
determine which power split is the most efficient for the
vehicle for the current operating conditions. A more detailed
description and equations for the ECMS method are given in
Figure 8. US06 Cycle in Charge Sustaining Mode

The first subplot shows the drive cycle speed trace, the
actual vehicle speed and the battery SOC. The second subplot
shows the torque traces for the engine (ICE), Front Electric
Machine (FEM) and Rear Electric Machine (REM). The third
subplot shows the currently selected gear in the 6-speed
transmission and the vehicle mode. Vehicle Mode 4
represents charge sustaining parallel mode. Vehicle Mode 3
represents charge sustaining series mode and vehicle Mode 2
represents charge depleting mode. The vehicle's charge
sustaining fuel economy, charge depleting range and utility
factor weighted fuel economy that were calculated using data
from the US06 City, US06 Highway, 505 and HWFET drive
cycles are shown in Table 10.
Table 10. Fuel Economy and Acceleration Results
Support of VTS Goals

The supervisory control algorithm selected by the Ohio
State team has a significant impact on the ability of the
vehicle to meet its all-electric range, fuel economy and
emissions targets. The control algorithm is responsible for
finding the most efficient power split between the engine and
two electric machines in order to keep all three components
operating in their most efficient operating regions as much as
possible. Therefore it has a large impact on the vehicle's
overall fuel economy and all-electric range. The supervisory
controller also plays a role in the regulating the vehicle's
tailpipe emissions by reducing transient torque requests to the
engine which can lead to emissions spikes.
Engine Control
The second team-developed controller is the engine
control. The following sections highlight key information

The requirements for the vehicle's engine controller are
listed in Table 8. These requirements were derived from the
needs/wants the team had for each of the different controllers
and the team's previous experience in the EcoCAR
competition. The team concluded that the engine control
algorithm should be able to receive a torque request and
engine speed and output commands to allow the engine to
match the input torque request with minimal error. The
algorithm should also determine the best way for the engine
to produce torque while meeting fuel economy and emissions
standards.
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Control Strategy Selection

To control the various actuators on the engine, several
different strategies were considered for the engine control
code. The topic of engine control is quite extensive and there
is not sufficient space to fully discuss in this report as the
team has been working on this topic over the duration of the
first EcoCAR competition. The team is currently working on
integrating EGR and delayed intake valve closure for
pumping loss reduction to achieve greater efficiency.
The result of the team's control design was to use strong
feed-forward control that relies on model-based air charge
estimation to estimate fuel mass required. This air charge
estimator also compensates for exhaust gas recycle and
disruptions from the variable cam system. A fuel dynamics
model provides additional dynamic compensation. A UEGO
sensor is used with a gain-scheduled PID control on fuel mass
as does an additional PID control on a post-catalyst EGO
sensor.
Emissions control of the engine is enhanced by the use of
a control system which uses an electrically heated catalyst
and air supply system to preheat the catalyst to 500 deg. C
before the engine starts. Furthermore, the supervisory control
reduces throttle transients to the engine by using the electric
motors to supply transient torque. The net result of the
control is an efficiency and low emissions engine which is
tightly integrated into the hybrid control system.

The Ohio State team will be largely using the same engine
control algorithm used in EcoCAR 1. This is because the
same 1.8 L Honda CNG engine as the previous competition
will be implemented into the vehicle. This code was
developed and optimized over several years using the
Motohawk libraries provided by Woodward. This reuse of
hardware and software modules is a great benefit to the team
in terms of financial and control development resources.
During this competition, the team will be porting the
engine control code to a block set compatible with ETAS's
FlexECU. The team will refine the engine control code and
develop new algorithms to further decrease the fuel
consumption and emissions while maintaining the power
performance. Improvements that will be designed and
validated include the introduction of exhaust gas recirculation
(EGR) and delayed intake valve closure (DIVC) to enhance
the already high efficiency, as well as heated fuel injectors
(HFI). EGR and DIVC will raise the efficiency of normal
operation towards peak efficiency levels. Heated Fuel
Injectors (HFI) will complement the current emissions
controls and electrically heated catalyst by actively reducing
emissions, especially CO and THC, by up to 70%.

The optimized and validated engine control algorithm will
help the Ohio State team achieve several VTS goals. These
include acceleration, fuel economy, and emissions targets.
The engine control algorithm is responsible for providing the
1330
correct control actions to allow the engine to achieve the

torque request from the supervisory controller during
transient and steady state behavior. This will help with the
acceleration targets. The control algorithm will also control
mechanisms like the electrically heated catalyst, EGR valve,
and delayed valve closure which will allow the vehicle to
meet the fuel economy and emissions targets.
General Control Module

The third team-developed controller is the general control
module. The following sections highlight key information

Requirements for the vehicles General Control Module
(GCM) are listed in Table 8. The GCM must control the
actuators needed to shift the six-speed transmission, as well
do variable speed control on the various pumps and fans
needed throughout the vehicle's powertrain. In order to shift
the transmission, two linear actuators are required to move
the shifting mechanism in both the X and Y directions. These
linear actuators are being driven using two of the GCM's Hbridges, allowing the actuators to move in both directions.
Control Strategy Selection

A variety of different control strategies could be
employed to control the transmission actuators. These control
strategies include open-loop feed-forward control, standalone PID control, compensator control, or a combination of
any of these.

To control the actuators, a feed-forward PID controller
has been developed. The feed-forward component allows the
controller to achieve the desired response time while the PID
component increases the overall accuracy of the controller. If
necessary, gain scheduling will be explored in future
development. This control has been implemented and will be
demonstrated at the Year 1 Competition Finals.

As will be discussed in a later section, the need to
automate a manual transmission was dictated by a number of
constraints - namely space requirements versus available offthe-shelf transmissions. In this respect, the control algorithm
for controlling the transmission is one of the key technologies
that allow the use of a highly efficient manual transmission.
This supports improvements in all of the efficiency related
VTS goals by reducing driveline losses.
Control Algorithm and Strategy Summary

As detailed above, the team has a very aggressive control
development plan. The architecture requires controls for three
major systems: 1) supervisory control; 2) engine control; and
3) automated manual transmission control. The team is
mitigating this risk by relying on previous controls as starting
points for (1) and (2) above. The team is taking on

considerable new development effort to address (3), however,
the team's extensive use of SIL and HIL will make this
possible.
PACKAGING AND INTEGRATION

Packaging Goals
The 2013 Malibu brought a unique packaging challenge
to the team compared to previous advanced technology
vehicle competitions. As detailed in the overview of the
architecture selection, rough packaging concepts were
developed for each of the considered architectures to ensure
they could be packaged in the vehicle.
For the detailed design of the selected architecture, the
team's packaging goals are summarized in the following list:
Maintaining or exceeding the high level of safety present in
the stock 2013 Malibu
Fit all necessary components into vehicle
Reduce impact on cargo space
Reduce impact on interior/exterior aesthetics
Reduce modification of structural members
Have no impact on passenger capacity
Maintain appropriate weight balance
Ease of serviceability and installation
Packaging in Support of Architecture

Selection
As described earlier in the report, packaging played a
large role in the architecture selection process. In the early
phases of architecture selection, components were not well
defined, thus, it was difficult to make firm packaging plans particularly in light of the sedan platform. From the
simulation side, it was also difficult to determine feasible
architectures from a packaging standpoint.
To deal with this issue, the CAD team first worked with
generalized CAD models of components to determine
potential feasibility of proposed architectures. Once it was
deemed likely to package, weight estimates were fed to the
simulation team. Eventually, the final architecture was
selected and proposed components came back to the CAD
team for more refined packaging analysis. The packaging
problem was difficult; however, the initial selected
components were successfully integrated into the vehicle.
Component Summary
Key powertrain components have been summarized in
tables throughout this report:
Front Powertrain Component Summary - Table 3
Rear Powertrain Component Summary - Table 4
Energy Storage Component Summary - Table 5

Controller Component Summary - Table 9
Cooling Component Summary - Table 11
Table 11. Cooling Component Summary
1331
the REM and rear gearbox. The two steps are connected by a
channel that allows HV and LV wires to pass between the
two groups of modules. The concept shown in Figure 10 was
selected as the final packaging concepts and is described in
much greater detail later in the Energy Storage section of the
report. The design was selected based on the key benefits
listed next:
Simplified pack assembly
Enclosure design reduced from 8.7 ft3 to 7.1 ft3 resulting in
an additional 1.6 ft3 of cargo space
Simplified battery installment and serviceability
Provides additional clearance for rear EM and transmission
Overall Vehicle Packaging Design

A full-page graphic showing the location of each of the
major powertrain components is shown in Appendix H. A
great deal of team effort went into creating the final
packaging design of the vehicle. This was compounded by
the relative lack of space in the sedan coupled with the
relatively high complexity and component count of the OSU
design.
Figure 9. First ESS Packaging Design Concept
Sample Packaging Design Process

To provide an example of the depth of the packaging
design process engaged by the team, an example is provided
from the energy storage system design. This process is fairly
typical of the packaging design conducted for all major
components.
More than a dozen conceptual layouts were considered
and evaluated for the ESS system. These early stage concepts
involved basic layouts in CAD with numerous assumptions.
This process led to two separate ESS storage concepts for indepth design. The first concept (Figure 9) consisted of a twolevel design. This design had a lower set of 4 batteries. Of
these 4 batteries, one battery was raised slightly to avoid
interference with a cross member. It also consisted of 3
modules mounted above the REM and rear gearbox.
The second concept selected is shown in Figure 10.
Similar to the previous design, this design consists of a twolevel configuration. Three modules are mounted in the spare
wheel well and the upper four modules are mounted above
Figure 10. Second ESS Packaging Design Concept
Front Powertrain Packaging Design

Front Powertrain Overview
The front powertrain packaging of the Ohio State
EcoCAR 2 vehicle contains the following major components:
1) a Honda E85 engine, a Luk Single Disk Dry Clutch; 2) a
1332
Parker Hannifin MPT 2104 electric machine; and 3) a GM

MF3 M32 six speed manual transmission. The manual
transmission is automated with SKF linear actuators in
conjunction with the Luk clutch. The front powertrain and
other associated components are shown in Figure 11.
The bell housing of the M32 transmission is removed, as
it no longer houses a clutch, and is replaced by a custom belt
housing case. The custom housing accommodates a belt
coupling and bolts to the input of the transmission. The
Parker Hannifin electric machine is the input to the belt
coupling, and is bolted to the gearbox, which supports the
weight of the machine. The output of the belt coupling is
fixed to the input of the transmission, as well as the output of
the Luk clutch. The input of the clutch is fixed to the
flywheel of the engine. A custom engine adapter plate bolts
the custom clutch cover to the engine. The clutch cover is
bolted to the other side of the belt coupling housing.
Transmission - As discussed in Powertrain Component

Selection section, the width constraint led to a particular
challenge. In the end, a transmission with a lower torque
capacity was selected.
Electric Motor Coupling - Several different methods of
coupling the electric motor torque to the transmission input
shaft were explored: 1) through-shaft; 2) gears; 3) dry chain;
4) wet chain; and 5) flexible belt. Many of these options
proved impossible, with (4) and (5) being the highest ranked
options on the design decision matrix. In the end, the flexible
belt proved the best option due to the lack of lubrication
system. This, however, gave up a small amount of width
which was a critical constraint in this system.
Transmission Actuators - The team also made tradeoffs
with respect to the actuation technology. The team considered
pneumatic, hydraulic, and motor driven actuators. Electric
linear electric actuators were selected for low weight and ease
of control. However, the actuators are not as capable in terms
of speed and lead to longer shift times. This is overcome by
the aggressive rear motor used in the design which can
provide supplemental torque during shifts.
Rear Powertrain Packaging Design

Rear Powertrain Overview
Figure 11. Front Powertrain CAD

The placement of the front powertrain was driven by the
front axle location. In order to ensure that the axle half shafts
would not interfere with the suspension at any part of the
suspension travel, the transmission differential was carefully
placed so that the original vehicle CV joints were concentric
with the differential output.
The Ohio State EcoCAR 2 vehicle will utilize a rear

powertrain system, which mounts to the AWD rear cradle.
The system consists of the following major components: 1) a
Parker MPT 2106 electric machine; 2) a Borg Warner
eGearDrive gearbox; and 3) the ESS system. Taking into
account the rear powertrain, energy storage system, and stock
vehicle components, a rear packaging study was conducted to
find the optimal configuration of added components. The two
major subsystems in this study are the rear electric traction
drive and the energy storage system. The energy storage
system is discussed earlier in the report. In this section the
emphasis is on the traction drive.
Key Design Constraints

The most critical clearance is the width of the assembly
across the vehicle. If not carefully controlled, this would
cause interference between the engine and passenger side
frame rail or the transmission and drivers side frame rail. This
clearance issue has been the dominant constraint on the front
powertrain design, dictating the selection of the narrowest
available transmission (many were considered) as well as
coupling the front electric featuring a narrow, high-power,
flexible belt from Goodyear.
Key Tradeoffs
The front powertrain design featured a number of
tradeoffs due to tight packaging and difficulty in finding
components which would meet the original specifications.
These tradeoffs are highlighted below:
Figure 12. Rear Powertrain CAD

The rear electric machine and gearbox are joined via a
pair of custom adapter plates. The plate mounting directly to
the Parker 2106 motor is an extended version of the stock end
plate, which saves cross-car distance in the rear powertrain

packaging. The powertrain assembly mounts directly to the
rear sub-frame by utilizing three rubber powertrain mounts.
The two stock mounts on the rear cross-member of the subframe will be used to mount the powertrain assembly. An
identical third mount will be incorporated into the design of
the modified front cross-member of the sub-frame, which will
also be used to mount the powertrain. The rear powertrain
assembly and mounting plates are shown in Figure 12.
Key Constraints
Key constraints considered in this packaging study were:
1) location of the eGearDrive axle shafts with respect to the
stock vehicle in order to maintain clearance; 2) limitations in
the angle of the eGearDrive unit for proper lubrication; 3)
serviceability of the battery system; and 4) impact on cargo
capacity. The positioning requirements from (1) and (2)
above in particular caused interference with the rear cradle
cross members - these are requirements and thus could not be
avoided.
The largest issue in packaging the rear powertrain
components was the potential interference with structural
members of the stock vehicle. The packaging scheme was
based around the Borg Warner eGearDrive gearbox, which
allows power to be transferred from the rear Parker Hannifin
electric machine to the wheels. The gearbox was the largest
component in the rear of the vehicle, and is constrained to
having its output aligned with the rear axles. This only
allowed two degrees of freedom for the packaging: cross-car
translation and rotation about the rear axle. After an initial
packaging assessment, it was clear that interference with the
rear sub-frame was necessary.
Key Tradeoffs
The final rear powertrain configuration is an optimized
design balancing structural interference, cargo space, design
complexity, and ease of installation. Two initial designs
surfaced, the first of which housed the entire powertrain
under the vehicle to maximize cargo space at the cost of
significant structural interference. The second design housed
the output of the gearbox near the center of the rear cradle
with the top of both components rotated into the trunk. This
design minimized structural interference at the cost of cargo
space. The team determined that minimizing structural
interference was the highest priority, so the second design
was chosen. The team decided to directly link the motor and
gearbox, rejecting a proposed design utilizing a silent chain
drive. This decision was made to decrease the complexity of
the design and increase the ease of installation.
Another key tradeoff is the ESS design described earlier
in this section. There was a great deal of interconnection
between the electric motor system and the energy storage
system. The selected designs provided the best overall
solution to a difficult packaging scenario.
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Electrical System Integration

Vehicle electrical system integration is critical to the
function of an advanced technology vehicle. The OSU team
split this effort into the low-voltage system, which is
discussed here, and the high-voltage system discussed later in
the section on the Energy Storage System.
The vehicle's 12-volt system relies mainly on the stock
distribution system with additional distribution and fusing for
added systems. The system is supplied through a DC/DC step
down converter with a battery to buffer the voltage and
provide power when the high-voltage system is unavailable.
The DC/DC Converter selected is being donated by General
Motors and provides a maximum of 3.3kW of power to the
12V bus. The system provides power to multiple devices in
the front and rear powertrain as well as accessory devices on
the vehicle. These devices include the transmission and
engine controllers, supervisory controller, and the battery
control module. Other accessory devices such as the center
stack display are less critical, but provide an important
feature to the user. Proper fusing techniques are applied
according to applicable AWG standards with particular
attention to the potential for high encountered temperatures in
automotive applications.
Vehicle Weight Analysis

Baseline Weight Analysis
The first stage in the analysis was to strip out all unneeded
powertrain components and systems from the stock vehicle to
provide a baseline weight of the chassis without the
powertrain. This resulted in a weight of 1262 kg. The mass of
the fixed powertrain components (i.e. things that could not be
altered) were added back in. The fixed weight was
determined to be 474 kg giving a total weight of 1736 kg
when added to the base vehicle.
The next phase involved estimating the weight of added
support systems such as mounting brackets, wiring, and
cooling. These values were estimated using measured data
from the EcoCAR 1 vehicle and reasonable assumptions such
as scaling the weight of the battery support system (coolant,
cooling plates) with the battery pack total weight. The
estimated weight of support systems is 108.6 kg giving a total
estimated weight of 1897.9 kg for the OSU EcoCAR 2
vehicle - an increase of 308.3 kg from the stock Chevrolet
Malibu. The results show that the front axle will support 974
kg while the rear axle will support 874 kg. The front to rear
distribution of weight is 53% to 47%. These values are within
competition rules.
Weight Reduction Potential

Based on the above analysis, the team only has direct
control over the support system mass being added to the
vehicle. This represents only 6% of the mass of the vehicle.
The remaining balance is from essential stock vehicle
structure/components and the weight of the added powertrain
components.
1334
An additional analysis was conducted to determine the

sensitivity of the vehicle to weight and aerodynamic drag.
The results show that the vehicle is sensitive to both, costing
approximately 3.3 mpg for each additional 100 kg of weight
and approximately 1.32 mpg for each 0.01 increase in drag
coefficient. Due to this, the team sought out strategies to
reduce losses of all kinds, but particularly to reduce weight.
For perspective, the addition of the large battery pack adds a
significant amount of weight to the design - but this is offset
by the great benefit of the battery for EV operation. Thus, the
increase in weight of the OSU vehicle is a necessary step in
achieving the team's selected architecture.
For the support systems, the team has employed the
following weight saving strategies:
Use of Aluminum - unless required for welding to steel,
aluminum is the first material considered for team designs
Use of Composites - in addition to a composite hood, the
team is exploring the use of composites in the energy storage
system packaging
Aggressive Designs - all designs are scrutinized from the
perspective of weight in terms of materials selection and the
smallest factor of safety deemed acceptable to meet safety
requirements
Minimization of Fluid Volume - minimization of fluid
volume though good routing and design; use of air cooling
for batteries
Minimization of Wire Size and Length - configuration and
location of electrical components chosen to minimize length
and size of three phase and DC cables
For the components and vehicle structure, accounting for
94% of the vehicle mass, the team is looking at the following:
Light-Weight Seats - existing relationship with sponsor may
provide opportunity for lightweight seats to be donated
Composite Hood Replacement - considering a custom hood
made from composite material for both aerodynamic and
weight saving purposes
To counter the inevitable increased weight of the vehicle
architecture, the team is also looking into the following
techniques to reduce vehicle losses:
Wheel Hub Covers - reduce turbulent flow through and
around the wheels
Rear Wheel Entry Covers - reduce drag associated with rear
wheels
Low Rolling Resistance Tires - reduce road load of the
vehicle due to reduced rolling resistance
External Rearview Mirror Replacement with Cameras reduces aerodynamic drag from side mirrors
Solar Panel on roof - reduces electrical load on the 12V
system with potential for high-voltage charging (EcoCAR
rules do not currently allow this)
Advanced Thermal Management - uses heat available from

engine/motors/batteries to accelerate warm-up of powertrain
lubricants
Waste Heat Recovery - looking into thermoelectrics to
recapture energy lost due to heat generated by the engine
Packaging Summary
Both the front and rear powertrain areas proved to be
packaging challenges. The team arrived at design
compromises that were able to accommodate the tight
package without having to relax the original VTS goals. This
was due to clever packaging design, but more importantly,
because of considering packaging in a meaningful way during
the architecture selection process. This resulted in a design
which could indeed be packaged. Although the vehicle design
adds weight, the majority of the weight increase is an
unavoidable attribute of the aggressive electric traction
system. This weight, of course, provides additional efficiency
to the system. Despite this, the team has proposed several
weight reduction strategies and other options to improve the
overall efficiency of the vehicle.
ESS DESIGN AND INTEGRATION

ESS Impact on VTS
The ESS has an extremely important impact on the team's
ability to meet their VTS goals. To determine the impact of
battery pack size on the vehicle's utility factor weighted fuel
economy, the team performed a fuel analysis with Argonne
National Lab's GREET software. Details of this analysis were
provided earlier in the report in the context of architecture
selection. The results demonstrated that using the
performance gains from using the highest energy pack
available from A123 Systems would outweigh the negative
issues of weight and packaging complexity.
The ESS also supports the team's VTS goals by enabling
the vehicle's engine to have start-stop operation. This requires
supplemental systems so that that both A/C and 12V are
available when the engine is stopped. To fulfill these
requirements, the team decided to use the high voltage A/C
unit and the DC-DC converter being offered by General
Motors to the EcoCAR 2 teams. The team's goals of having a
vehicle with a large utility factor weighted fuel economy, a
fully functional EV mode, and start-stop operation on the
engine led the team to select the A123 seven module 15s3p
340V battery pack.
ESS Design Goals

As described in the architecture selection section, the
largest ESS system was selected based on a comprehensive
analysis of the impact of this key system. Although there are
many reasons for this, the use of the utility factor concept in
competition performance assessment in key events was the
strongest driver. With this major decision made, the other key
design decisions that impacted the ESS design were the
selection of electric traction components and the manner in

which the supervisory control system uses them.
The following subsections highlight the key design targets
in each of three critical areas: Electrical, Thermal, and
Packaging.
ESS Electrical Design

ESS Electrical Design Targets
The electrical design goals encompass issues related to
cable sizing, fusing, EMI, and other concerns. The overall
goal of the design is to provide full-function electric
operation of the vehicle exceeding VTS performance targets.
These design targets are driven mainly by the following: 1)
Pack current capability; 2) Traction component power
capability; and 3) Supervisory control.
To determine the design targets of the ESS system,
EcoSIM was used to run simulations for each of the four
cycles of interest to the EcoCAR 2 competition (505, US06
City, US06 Highway, and HWFET), the E&EC event cycle
used in EcoCAR, an acceleration trial, and a grade
simulation. These simulations focused upon generating
requirements for continuous and peak current, state of charge
windows, heat generation, and peak and minimum voltage.
These results were then used to determine a set of design
targets described below. In addition to these, voltage and
current limits imposed by motors and inverters were also
considered.
Table 12. Key Energy Storage System Design Targets
ESS Electrical Design

The electrical system designed operates off of a 340 V
battery pack. Each module of the battery interfaces over CAN
to the battery control module which monitors cell temperature
and voltages as well as managing cell balancing. The ESS
electrical diagram can be found in Appendix G. The team
implemented a dual fuse technique located mid-pack between
battery modules three and four. A 350 amp fuse is used to
protect the battery against high current faults and a 250 amp
slow blow fuse is used reduce to wire size.
Arriving at this fusing solution required considerable
analysis. The traditional fuse selection curves provided by
fuse manufacturers provide time to blow for constant
currents. The high momentary peaks of an electric traction
drive are not well represented by this data. To design the
1335
system, the team ran multiple simulations on aggressive drive

cycles to determine the maximum currents that the ESS
electrical system would encounter.
The desired fusing strategy is required to accomplish four
things: 1) pass momentary current pulses of 800 amps for ten
seconds during accelerations; 2) quickly protect the battery
and inverter in the event of system short; 3) have a
continuous rating better than 180 amps with a safety margin
to enable the competition grade test in all-electric model; and
4) have a continuous rating as low as possible to minimize
wire size. The team arrived at a series fuse combinations
which met these conditions. A 250 amp slow blow fuse
allows the passage of high current pulses, passes a continuous
180 current with a safety margin, and yet allows for a modest
wire size in the system. A 350 amp semiconductor fuse (i.e.
fast blow) provides quick response for short circuits. Because
of the higher rating, it is also more resistant to momentary
high current pulses, such as during an acceleration event.
Once the team was able to properly fuse the pack, the
team created an efficient and robust wiring system. The team
found that most ampacity tables developed by the National
Electric Code (NEC) and other organizations were too
conservative to provide an appropriate solution to the ESS
electrical system. To fix this, the team ran many wire tests for
continuous currents and found the steady-state temperature
rise for the cable in order to determine a safe and efficient
wire ampacity. A 300 amp test was conducted which resulted
in only a 50 deg. C temperature rise. Given the 150 deg. C
rating of the wire and the fact that the system is fused to 250
A, the system has a sufficient safety margin.
The 340 V ESS Electrical System shown in Appendix G,
consists of four primary devices: the battery control module
(BCM), the electrical distribution module (EDM), the current
sense module (CSM), and the battery modules. Each of these
devices ensures the ESS safely provides power to the high
voltage power system in the vehicle. Located mid-pack, two
fuses are inserted to protect these devices against high current
faults and to reduce wire-size for better packaging and weight
saving. To increase the safety of the ESS enclosure, the team
uses a manual service disconnect (MSD) and a high-voltage
interlock loop (HVIL). The MSD allows for safe servicing of
the ESS and the HVIL contains detection for all vehicle
critical devices. If any of the devices trip the HVIL, the BCM
immediately disables the high voltage power system. Finally,
to connect the ESS high voltage components, the team will be
using a 1/0 AWG high-temperature high-flexibility wire rated
to 150C with a continuous current capacity in excess of 250
amps. The diagram also notes fusing and wire sizes for all
other key high-voltage components, such as inverters, the
charger, and the DC/DC converter.
ESS Thermal Design

ESS Thermal Design Targets
The thermal system is responsible for managing
temperature of the vehicle's ESS system. Key thermal design
1336
goals of the system are: 1) provide full-function electric

operation under all realistic competition thermal
consideration; 2) provide safe operation in any environmental
condition; and 3) minimize the system weight and complexity
of the thermal management system. The thermal system was
designed based on thermal loads determined from EcoSim
simulations. Based on EcoSIM, the heat generated for each
driving cycle is shown in Table 13.
The thermal system was designed to keep the battery
temperature under 48C when subjected to the above heat
loads. This will provide safe operation of the batteries in any
conditions.
Table 13. Thermal Loads for Various Drive Cycles
reduced electric demand. In the event that the system was

pushed into a critical temperature, the system would enter a
limp home mode and eventually disconnect the pack from
service.
ESS Packaging Design

ESS Packaging Design Goals
The ESS packaging system is responsible for mounting
the ESS to the vehicle and containing the system safely
within the vehicle. Key packaging design goals of the system
are: 1) Reduce mass of the packaging solution; 2) Exceed all
applicable structural requirements; 3) Exceed all applicable
safety requirements; and 4) Minimize loss of passenger/cargo
space. The mounting strategy used must also be robust. It
must be proven that the system can withstand the following
loads: a 20 g side-to-side, back-to-front, and front-to-back
forces. The battery pack selected by Ohio State has a mass of
151 kg, or 21.57 kg per battery module.
ESS Packaging Design Goals
ESS Thermal Design

Heat will be removed from the modules through custom
made, forced air-cooled, heat exchangers that will also serve
as the base of the battery case. The modules will be mounted
directly to the heat sink base vertically so the bottom of the
modules will be cooled. To achieve forced air cooling, two
air blowers will be used. These air blowers will provide
airflow of 38 scfm. This cooling design coupled with the
control strategy provides adequate cooling for all driving
cycles considered. Table 14 shows the final temperature after
50 miles (the expected all electric range) for various drive
cycles for the expected worse case conditions the vehicle will
experience. This design required extensive heat transfer
design and simulation using a dynamic thermal model of the
system.
Table 14. Temperature of Battery for 45C Ambient and
30C Initial Battery Temp
As can be seen from this data, the battery temperature

never reaches the maximum temperature of 48C. If this
temperature were to be reached, the supervisory control
would enter a mode (i.e. parallel mode) which has drastically
The ESS packaging strategy utilizes the cooling plates

discussed previously as mounting plates. Having the cold
plates serve a dual purpose allows for weight reduction and
an increase in cargo space. The cooling plates also serve as a
very sturdy base for the battery system. It is able to withstand
the loads mentioned previously with a minimum factor of
safety of 2.5 through extensive FEA. In addition to FEA on
the cooling plates, strength calculations were conducted on
the mounting bolts as well as the sheet metal the ESS is
bolted to. For the mounting bolts, shear and bearing stresses
were calculated used the same loads that were used to test the
strength of the cooling plates. This resulted in a minimum
factor of safety for the anchor bolts of 5.25. The tearing,
bearing, and shear stress were then calculated for the sheet
metal the cooling plates are mounted to. After applying the
same loads, the minimum factor of safety seen in the sheet
metal is 2.9.
The batteries are placed in the rear of the vehicle in a step
configuration. This configuration was necessary in order to
avoid interference with structural cross members as well as
the rear electric motor and gearbox. The bottom packs rest on
a cooling plate that is located where the spare tire was
previously located. The packs are contained within a box that
will be integrated into the sheet metal floor and supported by
a steel cage structure. To accommodate the stepped packs, a
raised, structural floor will be built up to support the cooling
plate and modules, at the same time closing off the area
containing the rear electric motor and transmission. Figure 10
shows a view of the pack in the vehicle before the lid is
installed and Figure 13 shows it after the lid is installed.
The overall packaging design allows for easy
serviceability. The system utilizes removable plates that
allow the team to assemble the pack from multiple angles.
Once fully assembled, the battery pack is safely sealed until
the MSD is pulled and the HVIL loop is broken. This
combination of easy and safe service provides for a wellbalanced ESS.
1337
CONTACT INFORMATION
For any questions regarding the work presented in this
paper, please contact Ohio State University EcoCAR Team
Co-Advisor Dr. Shawn Midlam-Mohler at midlam-mohler.
1@osu.edu or Ohio State University EcoCAR Team Leader
Katherine Bovee at bovee.1@osu.edu.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The team would like to thank the many people and
entities that make EcoCAR 2 possible, including the headline
sponsors General Motors and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Without the support of the numerous sponsors this invaluable
learning experience would not be possible for the team.
Figure 13. ESS with Covers
SUMMARY/CONCLUSIONS
The OSU EcoCAR 2 vehicle has been designed according
to the rigorous design process described in this report. This
process started with identification of customer needs and
wants which in turn led to high-level vehicle specifications.
These specifications then trickled down through the
architecture selection process, subsystem design, component
design, and control development process. This cascade of
specifications and the resulting verification and validation
plan has been captured by the team for use as the design is
realized in hardware and software. The architecture that
emerged from this process features a number of unique
technical aspects, such as an in-house developed automated
manual transmission, sophisticated supervisory controls, and
team-developed engine controls. The overall design will meet
or exceed the team's VTS goals and result in an exceptional
learning experience for the team.
REFERENCES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Paganelli, G., Brahma, A., Rizzoni, G., Guezennec, Y., G.: Control
Development for a Hybrid-Electric Sport-Utility Vehicle: Strategy,
Implementation and Field Test Results, 2001 American Control
Conference, June 2001.
Paganelli, G., Ercole, G., Brahma, A., Guezennec, Y., and Rizzoni, G.,
General supervisory control policy for the energy optimization of
charge-sustaining hybrid electric vehicles, JSAE Review, vol. 22, no. 4,
pp. 511-518, 2001.
Musardo, C., Rizzoni, G., Guezennec, Y., and Staccia, B., A-ECMS:
An Adaptive Algorithm for Hybrid Electric Vehicle Energy
Management, European Journal of Control, vol. 11, no. 4-5, pp.
509-524, 2005.
Gu, B. and Rizzoni, G., An adaptive algorithm for hybrid electric
vehicle energy management based on driving pattern recognition,
Proceedings of the 2006 ASME International Mechanical Engineering
Congress and Exposition, 2006.
Stockar, S, Marano, V, Canova, M, Rizzoni, G., A Control Study for the
Energy Management of Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles with
Applications to Real-World Driving Cycles, IEEE Transactions on
Vehicular Technology, 2011.
Onori, Serrao S. Rizzoni, G., Equivalent Consumption Minimization
Strategy as a realization of Pontryagin's minimum principle for hybrid
electric vehicle control, submitted to 2009 American Control
Conference, St. Louis, Missouri, USA June 10 - 12, 2009.
DEFINITIONS/ABBREVIATIONS
ADC - Analog to Digital Conversion
AVTC - Advanced Vehicle Technology
AWD - All-Wheel Drive
AWG - American Wire Gauge
CAD - Computer Aided Design
CAN - Controller Area Network
CFD - Computational Fluid Dynamics
CNG - Compressed Natural Gas
CO - Carbone Monoxide
CSM - Current Sense Module
CVA - Competitive Vehicle Assessment
DAC - Digital to Analog Conversion
DFMEA - Design Failure Mode and Effects Analysis
DIVC - Delayed Intake Valve Closure
E&EC - Emissions and Energy Consumption
ECU - Electronic Control Unit
EDM - Electrical Distribution Module
EGO - Switching Exhaust Gas Oxygen Sensor
EGR - Exhaust Gas Recirculation
EM - Electric Machine
EMI - Electromagnetic Interference
E-REV - Extended-Range Electric Vehicle
ESS - Energy Storage System
EVAP - Evaporative Emissions Control
FEM - Front Electric Machine
FTA - Fault Tree Analysis
GCM - General Control Module
GHG - Greenhouse Gases
GM - General Motors Greenhouse Gases, Regulated
GREET - Emissions and Energy Use in Transportation
1338
HEV - Hybrid Electric Vehicle

HFI - Heated Fuel Injectors
HIL - Hardware-in-the-Loop
HV - High Voltage
HVIL - High-Voltage Interlock Loop
I/O - Input/Output
ICE - Internal Combustion Engine
LV - Low Voltage
MABX - MicroAutoBox
MPG - Miles per Gallon
MPGGE - Miles per Gallon Gasoline Equivalent
MSD - Manual Service Disconnect
NEC - National Electric Code
OSU - Ohio State University
PHEV - Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle
PID - Proportional, Integral, Derivative
REM - Rear Electric Machine
SI - Spark Ignition
SIL - Software-in-the-Loop
SOC - State of Charge
THC - Total Hydrocarbons
TP&P - Testing Plan and Procedures
UEGO - Universal Exhaust Gas Oxygen Sensor
VDP - Vehicle Development Process
VTS - Vehicle Technical Specifications
WTW - Well to Wheel
APPENDIX
APPENDIX A: ECOCAR 2 DESIGN PROCESS V-DIAGRAM
1339
1340
APPENDIX B: OSU ECOCAR 2 VEHICLE TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
APPENDIX C: EQUIVALENT CONSUMPTION MINIMIZATION STRATEGY

Minimizing the fuel consumption (or emissions) during a driving cycle is an optimal control problem in which the solution
depends on the entire driving cycle. The solution of the global problem is difficult in simulation and impossible in real time, since at
each instant the future part of the driving cycle is unknown. The Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy (ECMS) was
introduced by Paganelli et al. [1,2] as a method to reduce this global problem to an instantaneous minimization problem, which is
solved at each instant, without use of information regarding the future. This algorithm was first successfully implemented in the
FutureTruck 2000 competition [1].
The ECMS is based on the concept that, in charge-sustaining vehicles, the difference between the initial and final state of charge of
the battery is very small, negligible with respect to the total energy used. This means that the electrical energy storage is used only as
an energy buffer. Since all the energy ultimately comes from fuel, the battery can be seen as an auxiliary, reversible fuel tank: the
electricity used during the battery discharge phase must be replenished at a later phase using the fuel from the engine (either directly
or indirectly through a regenerative path), and vice-versa. In fact, a particular operating point of the powertrain leads to two cases:
(a). the battery power is positive (discharge case): a recharge using the engine will produce some additional fuel consumption;
(b). the battery power is negative (charge case): the stored electrical energy will be used to alleviate the engine load for running
the car, which implies a fuel saving.
In both cases, the use of electrical energy can be associated to virtual (future) fuel consumption, which can be summed to the
actual fuel consumption to obtain the equivalent fuel consumption:
1341
(1)
where
is the fuel mass flow rate (instantaneous fuel consumption), Qlhv is the lower heating value of the fuel (energy content per
the virtual
unit of mass), Pfuel is the fuel power, Press the electrical power exchange with the energy storage system, and
instantaneous fuel consumption corresponding to the use of electrical energy. s is called equivalency factor and is used to convert
electrical power into fuel power; it plays an important role in the ECMS, as will be shown later. RESS (rechargeable energy storage
system) is used instead of battery for more generality, since there are other electrical energy storage devices available (mainly
electrochemical capacitors, or supercapacitors).
The concept of equivalent fuel consumption is tied with the necessity of attributing a meaningful value to the equivalency
parameter s. This parameter is representative of future efficiency of the engine and the RESS, and its value affects both the charge
sustainability and the effectiveness of the strategy: if it is too high, an excessive cost is attributed to the use of electrical energy and
therefore the full hybridization potential is not realized; if it is too low, the opposite happens and the RESS is depleted too soon (loss
of charge sustainability). It has also been shown [3] that very good results, comparable with the optimal solution of the global problem
calculated off-line, are obtained by using two values of s, one for charging (Sch) and the other for discharging (Sdis), each of them
constant during a driving cycle. These values are different for different driving cycles and can be adapted during vehicle operation
using adaptive ECMS algorithms [3,4]. The concept of adaptive ECMS was demonstrated in the FutureTruck 2004 competition [3]
and at ChallengeX 2006 [4]. In the case of a plug-in HEV, however, charge-depleting behavior is desirable and therefore the
equivalence factor can be selected in such a way that it allows to discharge the battery to the lower acceptable limit while minimizing
the desired control objective. In [5] it is shown that it is possible to modify the ECMS algorithm to account for charge depletion.
Finally, it should be noted that it has also been formally shown that the ECMS algorithm, which was developed based on physical
reasoning, is in fact equivalent to the well-known optimal control solution known as Pontryagin's Minimum Principle, and is therefore
a theoretically optimal solution if properly implemented [6].
APPENDIX D: ARCHITECTURE SELECTION PROCESS
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APPENDIX E: ARCHITECTURE SELECTION MATRIX
APPENDIX F: PARALLEL-SERIES PHEV ARCHITECTURE
APPENDIX G: ESS SCHEMATIC
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APPENDIX H: VEHICLE PACKAGING DESIGN

Design of A Parallel-Series PHEV For The EcoCAR 2 Competition

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Design of a Parallel-Series PHEV for the EcoCAR 2

a stock GM transmission with custom actuators and control

The Ohio State University EcoCAR 2 Challenge Team is

Aggressive Electric Operation - Customer requirements

VEHICLE DESIGN PROCESS

Multi-Mode Operation: The vehicle's design allows for

Bovee et al / SAE Int. J. Fuels Lubr. / Volume 5, Issue 3(November 2012)

implemented in the vehicle and then validated using the steps

rules for the execution of this particular test since it is a

Figure 1. EcoCAR 2 Vehicle Development Process

Current VDP Status

implementation and basic high-level control functionality. In

Goals and Specification Developments

project content; 3) provide good research project content; 4)

Competitive Vehicle Assessment

OSU EcoCAR 2 Students: The vehicle designed by the

Customer Needs and Wants

Figure 2. Competitive Vehicle Assessment Summary

Establish Vehicle Design Specs

Bovee et al / SAE Int. J. Fuels Lubr. / Volume 5, Issue 3(November 2012)

emission metrics were given weightings of 10 since the total

hydrogen fueled vehicle was not considered further by the

Architecture Selection Process

Figure 3. Estimated Total Competition Score for Fuel

Figure 4. Estimated Total Fuel Economy and Emission

Candidate Hybrid Vehicle Architectures

For each of these vehicles, Argonne National Lab's

Vehicle Model Setup

Bovee et al / SAE Int. J. Fuels Lubr. / Volume 5, Issue 3(November 2012)

Table 2. Vehicle Simulation Results

In addition to the good fuel economy and all-electric

Powertrain Component Selection

project. The remaining major powertrain components include

Table 4. Rear Powertrain Component Summary

Table 5. Energy Storage Component Summary

team determined that none of the available transmissions

Powertrain Configuration Summary

Key Tradeoffs in Powertrain Design

Ability to operate in charge depleting, charge sustaining

Control Development Tools

Bovee et al / SAE Int. J. Fuels Lubr. / Volume 5, Issue 3(November 2012)

constructed using MATLAB and Simulink, employing a

on the team's HIL equipment, but they will be implemented

Plant Model Development for SIL/HIL

Finally, the team has also created detailed physics-based,

HIL Test Bench Setup

demonstrating the most aggressive case, Case 4, at Year 1

Table 8. Requirements for Control Architecture and

Figure 5. HIL Setup Cases

Controls Development Process Summary

Control System Architecture

Bovee et al / SAE Int. J. Fuels Lubr. / Volume 5, Issue 3(November 2012)

Figure 6. Ohio State Control System Architecture

controllers, the team considered dSPACE, Woodward, ETAS

Supervisory Controller Selection

Use of team-developed powertrain controllers increase the

Control System Hardware

Table 9. Controllers Component Summary

The dSPACE MicroAutoBox II (MABX-II) was chosen

Engine Controller Selection

A123 Battery Controller: Manages operation of battery

Large amount of engine-specific input/output support