Front Loading Of Electric Vehicle System Validation Through Virtual Drive Test

Abstract

The electric powertrain is a multi-disciplinary and hierarchical system with complex interactions between software development and hardware design. Emphasis on early-stage requirement verification via virtual plant model and actual controller algorithms are viewed as the next frontier of accelerating product creation. The frontloading of virtual integration, testing, and validation of critical performance metrics (e.g., range, power, and acceleration) necessitates fast and accurate plant models for system-level studies. As the design evolves from concepts to final validation, these models should be updated synchronously. This work explores advantages offered by virtualization of validation by applying simulation models developed through traditional design workflows. The use case considered for the work is the range prediction of the electric vehicle for a given state of the battery capacity. The plant model of the electric powertrain will be developed in a system simulation environment for monitoring battery capacity degradation and its multidisciplinary performance over the usage history. The system representations will be enhanced by incorporating high-fidelity plant models extracted from 3D Physics-based simulation.