On Optimal Mission Planning for Vehicles over Long-distance Trips

Doctoral thesis, 2023

This thesis proposes a mission planner for vehicles over long-distance trips, for finding the optimal trade-off between trip time, energy efficiency, and
driver comfort, subject to road information, traffic situations, and weather conditions. The mission planner consists of three components, i.e. logistics
planner, eco-driving supervisor, and thermal and charging supervisor. The logistics planner aims at optimising the mission start and/or finish time by
minimising energy consumption and trip time. The eco-driving supervisor computes the velocity profile of the driving vehicle, by optimising the energy
consumption and penalising driver discomfort. To do so, an online-capable algorithm has been formulated in a model predictive control framework, subject to road and traffic information, and the pre-optimised mission start and/or finish time. This algorithm is computationally efficient and enables the driving vehicle to adapt and optimally respond to predicted disturbances within a short amount of time. Eco-driving has also been achieved for a vehicle
confronted with wind, by applying stochastic dynamic programming method. The thermal and charging supervisor regulates battery temperature and state of charge by coordinating the energy use of different thermal components. Within the thermal and charging supervisor design, a heat pump has been included for waste heat recovery purposes. Also, the charging stops have been optimally planned, in favour of energy efficiency and trip time. The performance of the proposed algorithms over a road with a hilly terrain is assessed using simulations. According to the simulation results, it is observed that total travel time is reduced up to 5.5 % by optimising the mission start time, when keeping an average cruising speed of about 75 km/h. Also, compared to standard cruise control, the energy savings of using this algorithm is up to 11.6 %. Furthermore, total charging time and energy consumption are reduced by up to 19.4 % and 30.6 %, respectively by developing the thermal and charging supervisor, compared to a case without the heat pump activated and without charge point optimisation.