A Matlab-based modeling and simulation package for electric and hybrid electric vehicle design

TLDR

V‑Elph 2.01 is a Texas A&M–developed Matlab/Simulink package that enables detailed visual programming of electric and hybrid vehicle configurations through interchangeable hierarchical subsystems of motors, engines, batteries, and support components. The paper presents a methodology for designing vehicle drive trains using the V‑Elph package. V‑Elph is implemented in Matlab/Simulink, portable across platforms, and allows users to construct and simulate drive trains via visual programming. Using V‑Elph, the authors designed an EV, a series HEV, a parallel HEV, and a conventional ICE drive train, and compared their fuel consumption, emissions, and complexity in simulation.

Abstract

This paper discusses a simulation and modeling package developed at Texas A&M University, V-Elph 2.01. V-Elph facilitates in-depth studies of electric vehicle (EV) and hybrid EV (HEV) configurations or energy management strategies through visual programming by creating components as hierarchical subsystems that can be used interchangeably as embedded systems. V-Elph is composed of detailed models of four major types of components: electric motors, internal combustion engines, batteries, and support components that can be integrated to model and simulate drive trains having all electric, series hybrid, and parallel hybrid configurations. V-Elph was written in the Matlab/Simulink graphical simulation language and is portable to most computer platforms. This paper also discusses the methodology for designing vehicle drive trains using the V-Elph package. An EV, a series HEV, a parallel HEV, and a conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) driven drive train have been designed using the simulation package. Simulation results such as fuel consumption, vehicle emissions, and complexity are compared and discussed for each vehicle.