Efficient hierarchical robust adaptive control of mode transition for parallel hybrid electric vehicles

A fast and smooth mode transition process for parallel hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) can improve vehicle drivability. At the same time, system uncertainty resulting from friction, gearbox, parameter perturbation, production deviations, and external disturbance of the mode transition process makes control design challenges. In this regard, this paper introduces a novel efficient hierarchical robust adaptive mode transition control strategy to achieve an accurate and fast engagement of the clutch of a parallel HEV during mode transition in the case of uncertain system parameters and unmeasurable actual clutch torque in this paper. At the upper level of the controller, a robust adaptive sliding mode control (RASMC) is proposed to calculate the clutch transmitted required torque based on the current states of the electric motor (EM) and engine, and the control parameters are optimized via the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm by compromising the vehicle jerk and the clutch slipping energy loss. Moreover, a fuzzy controller is designed to calculate the expected clutch engaging speed by employing the deviation of the desired and actual clutch torques, and the actual clutch torque is not a measured value but an estimate obtained by a proportional-integral (PI) observer. At the lower level, an adaptive finite-time control (AFTC) scheme is developed to overcome the gear backlash, parameter perturbation, and external disturbance during the clutch position tracking process. The effectiveness and advantage of the proposed control strategy are verified by both MATLAB/Simulink simulations and the hardware-in-loop (HIL) test.