Development of Energy Management System (EMS) with Driver Interface for Retrofit-Conversion Hybrid Electric Vehicle

Hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is considered as one of the ways to reduce world’s dependency on fossil fuel. It combines the features of conventional internal combustion engine with benefits of electric vehicle. However, the high price of HEV becomes a major drawback for its growth. As an alternative, retrofit conversion kit is being developed to convert a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle into HEV. This report discusses the development of energy management system (EMS) with driver interface based on National Instrument’s CompactRIO embedded controller for retrofit hybrid conversion. The EMS acts as main controller that governs both electric propulsion system and conventional propulsion system. Different parameters of the moving car, such as vehicle speed, engine rpm and fuel consumption are monitored by the EMS. A graphical driver interface is implemented, on tablet PC platform, connected to the CompactRIO via Ethernet TCP/IP. LabVIEW-based interface appears on a dynamically-controllable HTML page hosted on the web server part of the CompactRIO, enabling the driver to control and monitor vehicle operation on the Tablet PC via an ordinary web browser.