A Neural Network Based SRM Drive Control Strategy for Regenerative Braking in

EV and HEV
Hongwei Gao Yimin Gao Mehrdad Ehsani

Texas A&M University, Dept. of Electrical Engineering

College Station, TX 77843-3128, USA
Phone: 979-845-7562lFax: 979-845- 1976

Abstract-The characteristicsof the regenerative braking in 11. BRAKE

EV and HEV are analyzed in this paper. A neural network
based SRM drive control strategy is developed for satisfying
the requirements of regenerative braking in EV and HEV
when SRM is chosen as the power source of EV and HEV.
The energy recovery efficiency of the proposed control
strategy is also evaluated.
I. INTRODUCTION
Regenerative braking is an effective approach to extend
the operating rang of an electric vehicle (EV) and improve
the fuel economy of a self-sustained hybrid electric vehicle
(HEV),especially for the vehicle that mainly runs in urban
areas. For example, a 1500 kg passenger car, running at a
speed of 7 0 k d h (44mph), stores about 300k.J (0.083
KW.h) kinetic energy. If all the kinetic energy can be
recovered and reused to propel the vehicle, the recovered
energy can support the vehicle to run about 1.8 km (1.1
miles). However, without regenerative braking, most of the
kinetic energy is converted into heat during fictional
braking.
Braking power in an emergent braking is huge. For
example, a 1500 kg passenger car with a deceleration of
0.6g (6m/s2) at a initial speed of lOOkm/h (60 mph), the
braking power is about 250 KW. It is obvious that the
electric regenerative braking system cannot handle such
large braking power. Therefore, a mechanical friction
braking system must be attached with the electric
regenerative brake system for the safety reason.
Due to its low-cost and rugged construction, reliable
inverter topology, simple control strategy, and high
efficiency at wide speed range, switched reluctance motor
drive is considered promising as the propulsion power
source of EV and HEV. However, development of the
SRM drive control strategy for satisfying the requirement
of regenerative braking in EV and HEV remains a research
problem.
In this paper, the distribution of the braking force of the
vehicle is briefly explained in section 11. The distributionof
the braking power and energy at different vehicle speed for
a typical urban driving cycle is reviewed in section 111. An
artificial neural network based SRM drive control strategy
for satisfying the requirement of regenerative braking in
EV and HEV is presented in section IV.Energy recovery
efficiency of the proposed SRM drive control strategy is
also evaluated. Section V concludes the paper.
SYSTEM
AND OPERATING
CHARACTERISTICS
Reference [ 11 indicates that parallel-hybridized braking
system with a fur relationship between electrical regenerative
braking force and mechanical friction braking force for an EV
and HEV has a simple construction and control strategy. It is
also effective to absorb most of the braking energy in typical
urban driving. The configuration of the braking system is
shown in Fig.1. The regenerative braking only exists in the
front wheels. The braking torque on the front wheels is the
combination of regenerative braking torque produced by the
electric braking system and the frictional braking torque
produced by the mechanical braking system. The relationship
of the regenerative and frictional braking forces on the front
wheels is shown in Fig.2 for a 1500kg passenger car. In Fig. 2,
Fbh, Fbrrand j represents the mechanical braking force on
the front wheels, the electrical braking force on the front
wheels, the braking force on the rear wheels, and the
deceleration, respectively. Curve A, B, and C shows the ideal
braking force distribution between the front wheels and the
rear wheels, the practical braking force distribution between
the front wheels and the rear wheels in case without
regenerative braking system, and the practical braking force
distribution between the front wheels and the rear wheels in
case with regenerative braking system, respectively. When the
deceleration of the vehicle is less than O.lg, only regenerative
braking is invoked; otherwise both the regenerative and
frictional braking system produce braking torque on the front
wheels. The regenerative braking force at various
decelerations is shown in Fig.3.
Master
Force
Fig.1 Configurationof the braking system

0-7803-7091 IEEE
-0/01/$10@2001 571
 (25mph), the braking force is almost constant. This speed-
braking force characteristic well matches that of the electric
motor.
Fig.5 shows the distribution of braking energy along with
the vehicle speed. It indicates that about 85% of recoverable
braking energy is distributed in the speed range of higher than
15km/h (9.4mph). This fact implies that at very low speed, the
energy recovery efficiency is not a concern for the electric
braking system. At high speed, the electric motor should
produce the required braking torque with high energy recovery
efficiency. In fact, all the urban driving cycles share the same
braking power (force) and energy distribution characteristics
as mentioned above. Table 1 lists some key numbers for
typical urban driving cycles.
Braking force on the front wheels, kN, w.CONTROL STRATEGY OF SRM DRIVEFOR REGENERATIVE
BRAKING
Fig.2 Braking forces on the front and rear wheels along

As shown in Fig. 1, during braking, the driver applies a force

on the braking pedal, which represents the desired
deceleration. After receiving this braking signal from the force
sensor on the pedal, the SRM drive system should produce
corresponding braking torque according to the designed
braking force distribution shown in Fig. 2.

Braking deceleration, g "op~O2 0 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Fig.3 Regenerative braking force along with the vehicle deceleration

6 2
111. CHARACTERISTICS OF REGENERATIVE BRAKING POWER ::
2 1.5
AND ENERGY
IN A TYPICAL
URBAN DRIVING
CYCLE 2 1
e4

2 0.5
During regenerative braking, the electric motor should be n
"0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
able to provide the required braking torque at any speed
with high energy recovery efficiency. This implies that the Vehicle speed, km/h
operating characteristics of the electric motor should match Fig.4.Brakingpower and braking force along with vehicle speed in FTP75
uhan dnving cycle
the braking force, power, and energy requirement of the
vehicle. The maximum braking power at different vehicle
speed and the braking energy distribution along with
vehicle speed are two most important characteristics for Max. speed 8 6 . 4 M h (54mph)
studying the regenerative braking. The maximum braking V,: 1 5 M h (9.4mph)

power determines the power rating of the electric

regenerative braking system. The braking energy
distiibution along with vehicle speed indicates the speed
range in which the energy recovery efficiency should be
emphasized.
Fig.4 shows the regenerative braking power and force of
a 1500kg passenger car with a braking system as described
in section 11, driven in FTP75 urban driving cycle. It
indicates that the maximum braking power is about 16kW Vehicle speed, k m h
in the speed range of 35 to 50 km/h (22 to 32mph). The
braking energy
maximum braking force is about 2kN at near zero speed. It
should be noticed that at the speed less than 40 km/h Fig.5 Braking energy distribution along with vehicle speed

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 Table 1.Key parameters in typical urban dnving cycles

Phase Voltage during Regenerative

Braking Below Base Speed

Phase Current during Regenerative

Braking Below Base Speed
Speedai Max. 37 45 45 35 34
Brakingpawer,
(23) (28) (28) (22) (21.3)
kwh (mph) Electric Torque during Regenerative
Braking Below Base Speed

V,(refer to Fig. 5), 15 25 45 16 IO Fig. 6 Regenerative braking of SRh4 below base speed
(mph) (9.4) (15.6) (28) (10) (6.25)
I I I I I I I

As indicated in above section, when the vehicle is

braking at low speed, the kinetic energy of the vehicle is
little and energy recovery efficiency is not a concern for the
SRM drive system. The main objective of the SRM drive
system in this case is to provide the desired braking torque. 0 50 I M 1 % 0 3 ) J u a

While the vehicle is braking at high speed, the SRM drive Rotor Position(Mechanica1 Degree)
system should be able to provide the desired braking torque
with high energy-recovery efficiency.
The variation of SRM phase inductance along with the
rotor position is shown in Fig. 6. In order to achieve
regenerative braking, the SRM phase should be excited
while the phase inductance is decreasing as rotor position.
Below the base speed, since the absolute value of the back- Rotor Position(Mechanica1 Degree)
emf is lower than that of the dc-bus voltage, the phase Fig. 7 Variation of the regenerative braking torque with that of phase current
current can be regulated through hysteresis or PWM amplitude below base speed
control. Hence, the braking torque can be adjusted from
zero to the rated torque of the SRM by fixing the &on and
&off at the aligned position and the end of the negative
inductance slope and adjustingthe phase current amplitude
fkom zero to the rated value via hysteresis or PWM control.
The waveforms of the phase voltage, current and torque
during hysteresis control are shown in Fig. 6. The key issue
of this control strategy is how to determine the phase
current amplitude according to the required regenerative
braking torque.
As shown in Fig. 7, below the base speed, if 0-on and
t o f f are fuced at aligned position and the end of the 2d I 1 I I I
0 50 100 IS0 200 250 300 350 400
negative inductance slope, respectively, the average SRh4
Average Braking Torque(NM)
braking torque has a one-to-one relation with the phase Fig. 8 Phase current amplitude derived from the ANN according to the
current amplitude. This one-to-one relation between the required regenerative braking torque
braking torque and phase current amplitude is memorized
with a feedforward artificial neural network (ANN-I). This The variations of SRM phase voltage, current, and torque
ANN has 3 layers, with one input (the required along with the rotor position during regenerative braking
regenerative braking torque) on the input layer, 5 neurons above the base speed are shown in Fig. 9. Above the base
on the hidden layer, and one output (the required phase speed, if the absolute value of the back-emf is higher than that
current amplitude) on the output layer. This ANN is trained of the dc-bus voltage, the phase current can still increase even
with back propagation learning algorithm. The data used to when the phase is turned off. Therefore, the hysteresis or
train this ANN is obtained from extensive numerical PWM logic can not regulate the phase current. In this case, the
simulation on a 3-phase, 300v, 22.5KW, 500rpm(base phase current, hence the regenerative braking torque, can be
speed) SRM. The required phase current amplitude can be controlled by fixing 8-on at the aligned position and adjusting
derived from this ANN according to the required the 0-off from the aligned position toward the end of the
regenerative braking torque. The result is shown in Fig. 8. negative inductance slope. In this case the energy recovery

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 efficiency is expected to be hlgher because the iron loss of
the SRM and switching loss of the inverter due to the phase
voltage exertion associated with hysteresis or PWM control
do not exist.
As shown in Fig. 10, above the base speed, at a certain
dc-bus voltage and rotor speed, the phase current, hence the Rotor Position(Mechan1cal Degree)
braking torque, monotonically increases as )-off. The
mapping from the vector ( v , w, T) to &off is
characterized with a 4-layer feedforward artificial neural
network (ANN-HI), Where v, w, T represents dc-bus
voltage, rotor speed, and the regenerative braking torque,
respectively. This ANN has 3 inputs (v, w, and T) on the 0 10 100 110 2"O ?ID

Rotor Position(Mechanica1Degree)
1w 111) IW

input layer, 6 neurons one the first hidden layer, 6 neurons Fig. 1 0 Variation of the phase current and regenerative braking torque with
on the second hidden layer, and one output (O-ofl) on the that of Koff above base speed (dc-bus=30Ov, m2500rpm)
output layer. The ANN is trained with back propagation
algorithm using the data obtained from numerical
simulation on the same SRM. At 300v dc-bus voltage but
different rotor speed, the )-off derived from the ANN
according to the required braking torque is shown in Fig.
11.
Above the base speed, the phase current may still
increase even though the phase has been turned off because
of the huge back-emf. Hence, the maximum )-off should
be limited to prevent the phase current from exceeding the
rated value. Therefore, the maximum brakmg torque at
certain dc-bus voltage and rotor speed is limited by this 0 20 40 60 So 100 I20 140 160 180 200
Average Braking Torque(NM)
maximum )-off limitation. In order to find the maximum Fig. 1 1 &off derived from the ANN at various speed and braking torque (dc-
braking torque available at a certain dc-bus voltage and bus=300v)
rotor speed, the mapping from the vector (v, w) to the
maximum braking torque available at (v, w) is memorized I I I
with a 3-layer, feedforward artificial neural network (ANN-
11). This ANN has two inputs on the input layer (v, w), 10
neurons on the hidden layer, one output (maximum braking
torque available at (v, a))on the output layer. This ANN is
also trained with back propagation algorithm using data
obtained from numerical simulation. The maximum
braking torque available at 300v dc-bus voltage and
different rotor speed derived using ANN is shown in Fig.
I
12. ImO
I
lyxl
I
2mO m
The overall control strategy of the SRM drive for Rotor Speed(Rpm)

generating the required regenerative braking torque is Fig. 12 Maximum braking torque available at different rotor speed (dc-
bus=300v)
depicted in Fig. 13.
Phase Inductance Profile
According to the control strategy presented above, the
maximum braking torque and braking power available at
different rotor speed is calculated and shown in Fig. 14. It can
Phase Voltage during Regenerative be seen from Fig. 4 and Fig. 14 that the presented control
Braking above Base Speed strategy can satisfy the braking torque and braking power
requirement of the vehicle.
Phase Current during Regenerative According to the presented control strategy, the energy
Braking above Base Speed recovery efficiency of the SRM drive above the base speed is

Electric Torque during Regenerative

I calculated and shown in Fig. 15. It can be seen that above base
speed, the energy recovery efficiency is relatively low in case
Braking above Base Speed of low braking torque. This is because of the relatively high
iron loss resulting from the high rotor speed. In case of high
braking torque, the energy recovery efficiency can be as high
Fig. 9 Regenerative braking of SRM above base speed as 0.91.

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 S R M drive shows the validity of the proposed control strategy
Read the cmml SRM specd hom Ihc speed =<or 1 and value of the SRM drive as the power source of the EV and
c
HEV from energy recoveq point of view.

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Fig. 15 Energy recovery efficiency Venus braking torque (dc-bus=300v)

V CONCLUSION

The effectiveness of regenerative braking in EV and

HEV for saving energy is studied in this paper. The
characteristics of the regenerative braking are briefly
explained. A neural network based SRM drive control
strategy is developed for achieving regenerative braking in
EV &d HEV. The high energy recovery efficiency ofthe

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