An intelligent alternator control approach for fuel consumption reduction

Abstract

In recent years, it is necessary to improve the energy efficiency and reduce emissions. Hence, energy saving and fuel consumption improvement in conventional vehicles are desired. Intelligent control of alternator grants an opportunity for the mentioned goals. In this paper, electrical system of a conventional vehicle is modeled to understand its behavior more thoroughly. The modeled components are fuel convertor, drive train, battery, alternator, and resistive loads. Then, an intelligent alternator control is proposed for the power system of the vehicle which manages the energy flow through the vehicle power system considering the engine fuel and the alternator efficiency maps. The fuel consumption and exhaust gas pollution have been reduced while maintaining reliability has been investigated and demonstrated through a standard driving cycle in the MATLAB / Simulink environment.