International Conference on Computer and Communication Engineering (ICCCE 2012), 3-5 July 2012, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Design of Environmental Friendly

Hybrid Electric Vehicle
M. Habib Ullah, T.S. Gunawan, M. R. Sharif

R. Muhida

Electrical and Computer Engineering Department

International Islamic University Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Surya Research and Education Center

STIP Surya (Surya University)
Serpong, Tangerang, Indonesia
The beauty of the HEV is that energy can be fed back into
the battery for storage, e.g., during regenerative braking (which
is otherwise wasted as heat in a conventional vehicle). Leading
car manufacturers like Toyota and Honda have already started
mass producing HEV cars, Prius and Insight respectively,
which are now becoming very popular among the consumers
for their incredible mileage and less emissions. Aside from
that, a number of automotive manufacturers are marketing
hybrid vehicles for the general population, examples are
DaimlerChrysler, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Fiat, Renault, Ford, GM,
and Subaru [1]. Although the number for alternative electric
vehicles is not significantly higher when efficiency is evaluated
on the basis of conversion from crude oil to traction effort at
the wheels, it makes a difference.

Abstract Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) powered by electric

machines and an internal combustion engine (ICE) are a
promising mean of reducing emissions and fuel consumption
without compromising vehicle functionality and driving
performances. This paper presents the design of an
environmental friendly hybrid car that feature the gasoline
engine and batteries pack. The fuel consumption benefited by
hybridization are benchmarked to conventional Gasoline and
Diesel fueled vehicles. The relationship between fuel consumption
and vehicle weight is investigated for Gasoline as well as for
Diesel fueled vehicles. Although the automobile manufacturers
have reduced the greenhouse gases such as hydro-carbons,
carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, etc., from the vehicle, they
cannot produce a zero-emission vehicle unless they produce an
electric vehicle (EV). An electric vehicle is an emission free,
environmental friendly vehicle. The proposed design of HEV
intelligently gets around the individual problems associated with
the gasoline engine and the electric vehicle. It diminishes the
production of emissions and the use of fuel. The problem of
batteries for the electric vehicle is conquered. An HEV charges
itself; it never has to be plugged in. When it does not provide
power, the motor can run as a generator to transfer energy from
regenerative braking and from the gasoline engine to the
batteries.

In [2] electrical components and overall system design of a

conversion car-turned-to-hybrid are discussed. Battery (leadacid) and super-capacitors was used as electrical storage unit.
The battery and super-capacitor used made it possible to
transfer power bi-directionally between wheels, batteries, or
super-capacitors in desired proposition. It also features EMC
(Energy Management Computer) installed in the vehicle that
monitors entire system to determine what each unit should do.
Using capacitor bank instead of battery alone had significantly
reduces the power and energy cycling requirement, thus
increasing battery life. However, efficiency is reduced as EMC
performs most of the power transfer between batteries and
super-capacitors. The EMC communicates with the capacitor
and battery controllers, the IC engine, and the driver controls to
decide the torque required from the battery and capacitor
motors. The parameters that are measured by the information
structure developed are cell voltages and current, DC link
voltage, power, speed, phase current and temperatures. If the
measured parameters increased to above 10% of limit level,
system shutdown is initiated by hardware as self-protection in
battery and capacitor units.

Keywords- Hybrid electric vehicles; gasoline engine; batteries;

dc motor; greenhouse gases.

I.

INTRODUCTION

An electric vehicle is an emission free, environmental

friendly vehicle. However, the electric vehicles remain
unpopular among the consumers due to their lack of
performance and their inability to travel long distances without
being recharged. So, vehicle that embraces both the
performance characteristics of the conventional automobile and
the zero-emission characteristics of the electric vehicles are
greatly being anticipated by the general consumers and the
environmentalists alike.

In [3] extensive investigation is done on how battery

management system can be used to lengthen the lifetime of the
battery pack. The key to this approach is to monitor and charge
the batteries individually. As batteries in HEVs have very
dynamic discharging and charging cycles, it needs intelligent
system to maintain and prolong the batteries life cycles. Due
to manufacturing inconsistencies and operational variations
each cell of battery can have different performance
characteristics. The suggestion by the author is to close
monitoring and to control the charging cycles. They also
described the many possible ways to recharge the batteries as
such, constant voltage charging and constant current charging.

Technically, the quest for higher fuel economy is shaped by

two major factors: how efficiently a power train converts fuel
energy into useful power, and how sleek a vehicle is in terms of
mass, streamlining, tire resistance, and auxiliary loads. On the
other hand, vehicle functionality and comfort are shaped by
various other factors, many of which run counter to higher fuel
economy. Examples abound, from the way torque converter
sacrifices efficiency to provide better shift smoothness and
responsiveness to the wide variety of features that add mass to
a vehicle.

978-1-4673-0479-5/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE

544

Advantages:
Low emission drive is possible most of the time
Engine can run more efficiently because it is not directly
connected to the drive train.
x Flexibility of location of engine-motor set
x Suitability for short trips.

In most application of HEV, a single charger is used for entire

battery pack. The intelligent system discussed is to provide
individual chargers for each battery. This made possible due to
a number of advances that have allowed DC/DC converters that
are used as the battery chargers, to be considerably reduced in
size and weight. Each charger can be turned on independently
and the voltage limits can be adjusted remotely. However, there
are still needs of more research attention to improve the HEV
performance with lowest emission of carbon gasses which
severely affect the environment.

x
x

Disadvantages:
The vehicle needs a full-sized electric motor, an electric
generator and an IC engine, each of which can supply the
required power for the vehicle.
x The vehicle is only driven by the electric motor, which
places great constraints on the battery pack and in
particular requires large battery capacities.
x All three drive train components need to be sized for
maximum power for long distance, sustained, high speed
driving. This is because the batteries will exhaust fairly
quickly, leaving ICE to supply all the power.
x

In this paper, a new prototype of low emission environment

friendly HEV is developed. The proposed HEV prototype is
constructed with simple design procedure and low cost
available equipments compare to mentioned design.
II.

HEV CONFIGURATIONS

A brief description about various HEV configurations

available in the market is presented. The three main
configurations are the series, parallel and the dual-mode
configurations and the explanation of each one of them with
their merits and demerits follows.

B. Parallel HEV Configuration

In the parallel HEV configuration there are two power paths
for the drive train, while one comes from the engine the other
comes from the electric motor. During short trips the electric
motor can power the vehicle, while during long drives the IC
engine can power the vehicle. The vehicle can thus have engine
only, motor only, or a combination of engine and motor mode
of operation. The electric motor can also assist the engine
during hill climbs and vehicle accelerations, thus the rating of
the IC engine can be reduced. This configuration is illustrated
in Figure 2.

A. Series HEV Configuration

In series HEV configuration, only the electric motor is
connected to the drive train and thus the vehicle is entirely
driven by the electric motor. The Internal Combustion (IC)
engine drives an electric generator (commonly known as
alternator), which then supplies the electric power to the motor
and battery pack. The IC engine will turn off if the battery is
fully charged. In some cases, the electric power supply for the
electric motor can come both from the battery and the enginegenerator set. As only the electric motor is connected to the
drive train, the IC engine can run at an optimum speed to run
the generator thus greatly reducing the emissions. The batteries
can either be charged off-board, by external DC power link
from the electric-grid, or on-board, with the help of an
alternator and an IC engine. In this setup, it is possible to
design the operation such that the IC engine never idles and
thus the overall emissions are reduced. The schematics of
series HEV is shown in Figure 1.

In parallel HEV configuration, the drive train is connected

to the electric motor and engine through a mechanical coupling
or an angle gear. These vehicles do not require a generator (as
in the case of series HEV configuration) and they can be
connected to an electric grid (off-board) for recharging the
batteries. The electric motor can be made to act as generator via
a mechanical clutch which can then be used for regenerative
braking. Both the gas-powered engine and the electric motor
can turn the transmission simultaneously, and the transmission,
of course, turns the wheels. The fuel tank and gas engine and
the batteries and electric motor connect independently to the
transmissionas a result, in a parallel hybrid; both the electric
motor and the gas engine can provide power.
Advantages:
In this configuration, the battery size can be small, as both
the engine and motor are connected to the drive train.
x The performance is very much comparable to conventional
vehicles due to dual power sources.
x The constraints on the battery pack and the electric motor
are relaxed in this configuration.
x

Disadvantages:
The vehicle cannot get full acceleration support from the
electric motor when the battery pack charge is low.
x The control complexity increases significantly, because the
power flow has to be regulated and blended from two
parallel sources.
x The power blending from the ICE and the motor
necessitates a complex mechanical device.
x

Figure 1. Series HEV drive train

It can be seen that the IC engine is connected to the

alternator (generator) which in turn is connected to the battery
pack and electric motor through an electronic control unit. This
scheme allows the electric motor to get its power from either
battery pack or the alternator or both as per the battery state of
charge and vehicle acceleration requirements [4-6].

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III.

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

A. Mechanical Design
Mechanical design of the proposed HEV starts with the
functional block diagram, and design of the chassis, the major
components involved in prototyping and the parts constructed.
Functional block diagram: A simple and comprehensive
block diagram is presented to manage the workflow of this
study. In designing the prototype of the hybrid car,
mechatronics design approach illustrated in Figure 4.

Figure 2. Parallel HEV drive train

C. Dual Mode HEV Configuration

Dual mode hybrid vehicles are parallel hybrids, but differ
from them in the aspect that an alternator (generator) is coupled
to the IC engine that charges the battery. During normal
operation, the IC engine turns both the drive train and the
generator, which in turn feeds the battery pack through the
electronic control unit. During full-throttle acceleration, the
electric motor gets power from the battery and assists the IC
engine to attain the requested acceleration. Choosing a full size
electric motor, which uses the IC engine only for charging the
battery and occasionally for turning the wheels, can reduce tail
pipe emissions and this can be achieved with the help of a
mechanical clutch. This configuration exhibits dual capability
and hence the name dual mode HEV configuration. The
schematic of the dual-mode HEV configuration is shown in
Figure 3.

Figure 4. Functional block diagram of the proposed HEV

Chassis design: Chassis is the base part of the mechanical

design. The chassis took shape of only the rear part of the
actual vehicle, this is to consider the place where all the main
components will reside and thus reduce the manufacturing cost
of the prototype. The dimensions are calculated by considering
the general size of the components after research conducted.
The angle aluminum is considered as the main material for the
construction of the chassis. There are few reasons why this
angle aluminum is very suitable for the construction of the
prototype such as light weight, easy to connect, high strength
etc.
Gasoline Engine: The selected engine is BG-328 brush
cutter, with peak power 0.81kW. Important advantages of this
engine include fuel efficiency and weight. A detailed
specification is provided in Table I.
TABLE I. SPECIFICATIONS OF GASOLINE ENGINE
Model
Engine type
Displacement
Maximum output
Fuel
Dimension (LxWxH)
Dry weight
Supplier

Figure 3. Dual Model HEV drive train

DC motor: The type of motor used can vary depending on

the power system of the vehicle and its size. Current internal
combustion hybrid cars tend to use AC induction motors due to
both the power requirements and the generally increased
efficiency over commutated DC motors. However for smaller
low-speed vehicles the desire would be to use some form of
DC motor to decrease the overall complexity of the vehicle.
The use of a DC motor would reduce the power conditioning

Advantages:
x It has both the advantages of the series and parallel
configuration.
x

BG-328
2 cycle, single cylinder, gasoline engine
30.5 cc
0.81kW
Mix fuel of gasoline and 2 cycle oil
345 X 280 X 401 mm
9.4kg
OTONANI Co. Ltd

Disadvantages:
It needs more components such as an electric motor, an
electric generator, an IC engine and a battery pack, for its
operation which makes it more expensive.

546

requirements by eliminating the need for an inverter from DC

to AC power. Despite being slightly less efficient, the reduced
expense and balance of plant obtained by using DC motors
makes them more suitable for low speed hybrid vehicles. There
are some other mechanical parts included such as SLA battery,
alternator and wheels, transmission, belting, chain etc.

To reverse the direction of rotation of motor, it is necessary

to reverse the polarity of the voltage on the motor. This
requires the use of an H-Bridge. An H-Bridge schematic
diagram is shown in Figure 6. The application of H-Bridge will
be explained in later section of the chapter. Using this
topology, it is possible to provide variable speed control in both
directions.

B. Electrical Design
Microcontroller is used to control the electrical part of the
design. There are many types of microcontrollers of different
platforms in the market with various features. These include
Atmels AVR, Intel compatible 8051 from various
manufacturers, DS80C400 Networked microcontroller from
Dallas Semiconductors, and the famous PIC series
microcontrollers from Microchip [7-9]. In this study the
microcontroller used is PIC 16F877A.

PIC 16F877A Microcontroller: It has 40 pins and 5 inputoutput (I/O) ports. Port A consists of 6 pins which can be set up
as either digital I/O or analog inputs. Port B is an 8-pin port
which can be used for both digital I/O operations and in-circuit
debugger (ICD) operations. Port C, on the other hand, is a 5pin multi-functional port, which can be used for digital I/O, as
capture-compare (CCP) input, or pulse-width modulation
(PWM) output. Moreover, it can be used as universal
asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART) for serial
communications. Port D is an 8-pin port, which can be used for
both digital I/O as well as parallel slave port (PSP) functions.
Finally, Port E is a 3-pin port, which is used for external
memory connections. The clock is provided by a crystal
oscillator. Supply voltage VDD = 5V is regulated DC Voltage.
The connections are as shown in Figure 6. VSS = 0V is the
ground. The crystal oscillator is connected to the ground with
30 pF capacitors.

Electrical system functional block diagram: Every motor

control circuit can be divided into the drive electronics and the
controlling software. These two pieces can be fairly simple or
extremely complicated depending upon the motor type, the
system requirements and the hardware/software complexity
trade-off. The drive electronics as well as the controlling
software will be explained and discussed thoroughly. The
functional block diagram of the electrical system connection of
this study is shown in Figure 5. It is fairly simple in term of
linking as much of the controlling is done by software. The
main connection is between the motor and the battery, and the
battery to the alternator. The potentiometer is be used as means
of controlling the speed of the motor.

+5V

10K
11
1

+5V
RESISTOR VAR

32
2

4
1K
S1

40

PIC 16F877A

30pF
13
20MHz
30pF

Figure 5. The functional block diagram of the electrical part of

the proposed HEV

Pulse-Width Modulation is critical to modern digital motor

controls. By adjusting the pulse width, the speed of a motor can
be efficiently controlled without larger linear power stages. PIC
16F877A has hardware PWM modules on them. These
modules are built into the Capture/ Compare/PWM (CCP)
peripheral. CCP peripherals are intended for a single PWM
output, while the Enhanced CCP (ECCP) is designed to
produce the complete H-Bridge output for bidirectional
Brushed DC motor control.

14

12

31

Figure 6. The clock and input connection

Battery voltage indicator: The circuit in Figure 7 below is a

voltage analyzer that gives an audio-visual indication of the
battery voltage level and also warns about the critical voltage
level at which the battery require charging. This circuit is
integrated just as an indication. It is separated from the main
controlling circuit as the main circuit that consists of

547

The program will start to recharge the battery at voltage

value = 11.8V. The program is also set to be able to move
forward and reverse by a button switch as a mean to do so.

microcontroller can only take 5V power supply and the battery

voltage indicator work with 12V power supply. It also feature
switch on-off to easily interface between the user and the
circuit.

V.

CONCLUSIONS

An HEV intelligently gets around the individual problems

associated with the gasoline engine and the electric vehicle. It
diminishes the production of emissions and the use of fuel. The
problem of batteries for the electric vehicle is conquered. An
HEV charges itself it never has to be plugged in. When not in
use providing power, the motor can run as a generator to
transfer energy from regenerative braking and from the
gasoline engine to the batteries.
The only recharging necessary is refueling by going to the
gas station. Also, there is not the same demand on the batteries
as there would be in an electric vehicle, where the batteries
must store all the energy the car needs. These batteries are
smaller, and only have to be able to provide for the high-power
uses. Similarly, the engine for a HEV is smaller than it would
be in a traditional car, as it doesnt have to provide as much
horsepower.
Figure 7. The battery voltage indicator circuit

IV.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research work is supported by IIUM under endowment
project EDWB11-044-0522.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The design of HEVs permits great flexibility, allowing the

designers to optimize for a number of different benefits, such
as fuel economy, emissions, cost of the vehicle, and safety.

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[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

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[6]
Figure 8. The proposed HEV prototype

[7]

At start, the engine must be put to ON mode and the voltage

indicator switch turned on to check the battery voltage before
the operation can be run by the DC motor. It means that, if the
buzzer of the voltage indicator did not produce any sound and
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be recharge before can be used. In other condition, provided
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changed to motor-mode instead of engine-mode. This is
detected by the software program that controls the on-off of the
battery charging process by analyzing the analog input from the
battery.

[8]

[9]

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