Development of a Hybrid Electric Traction Platform for Agricultural Machinery

Abstract

Electricity is the new fuel and the preferred form of energy for the future. Electricity has revolutionized, not just domestic energy consumption, but also in transportation energy usage. Fossil fuels are non-sustainable and causes global warming, hence, hybrid electric and fully-electric vehicular means of transportation will replace the conventional fossil-fueled types. In this thesis, a series hybrid electric vehicle platform is designed and developed for usage in autonomous agricultural machine applications. Energy Management System scheme is designed to apportion primary energy usage between electrical and mechanical works, and the integration and control of battery energy storage system is also implemented. The control systems of the electric motors running the wheels are designed and integrated with an auto-path trajectory tracking scheme for autonomous operation mode. A series of simulations have been carried out to test effectiveness of the implemented algorithms. Practical hardware laboratory build-up of the proposed platform topology has been implemented from the scratch.