Study on Power Switching Process of a Hybrid Electric Vehicle with In-Wheel Motors

Hybrid electric vehicles with in-wheel motors (IWM) achieve a variety of driving modes by two power sources—the engine and the IWM. One of the critical problems that exists in such vehicle is the different transient characteristics between the engine and the IWM. Therefore, switching processes between the power sources have noteworthy impacts on vehicle dynamics and driving performance. For the particular switching process of the pure electric mode to the engine driving mode, a specific control strategy coordinating clutch torque, motor torque, and engine torque was proposed to solve drivability issues caused by inconsistent responses of different power sources during the mode transition. The specific switching process could be described as follows: the engine was started by IWM with the clutch serving as a key enabling actuator, dynamic torque compensation through IWM was implemented after engine started, and, meanwhile, engine speed was controlled to track the target speed through the closed loop PID control strategy. The bench tests results showed that the vehicle jerk caused during mode switching was reduced and fast and smooth mode switching was realized, which leads to the improvement of vehicle’s riding comfort.