Improvised E-rickshaws for indian roads by effective battery-ultracapacitor hybridization

Abstract

The revolution in the electrification of conventional vehicles due to increased petroleum prices and environmental concerns has had its impact on three-wheeler vehicles as well. Motorized three-wheeled vehicles, known as Auto-rickshaws, are a standard mode of transportation in India. Existing battery operated electric rickshaws (known as E-rickshaws) available in major cities of India faces challenges like insufficient charging facility, low driving range, high battery cost, battery replacement/disposal, etc. A battery-ultracapacitor (UC) hybrid energy source is proposed in this paper to overcome these issues. Two energy sources of complementary characteristics, when operated in tandem, can enhance the overall performance of a vehicle in terms of weight, volume, and efficiency. An Erickshaw with battery-UC hybrid energy sources is modeled in Matlab-Simulink in this paper. The vehicle dynamics are calculated real-time based using a GPS based PerformanceBox tool of VBOX motorsport for Surat city. A fuzzy logic-based approach was employed for efficient energy management between these two sources with efficient utilization of regenerative power generated while braking. The system was later tested on Real-Time Hardware-in-Loop (HIL) environment to validate the simulation results. It was observed that the addition of an additional source with complementary characteristics had enhanced the performance of vehicle operation.