Simple supercapacitor charging scheme in electrical car simulator by using direct current machines

Abstract

Supercapacitors are electrical components which have a higher capacity of storing energy compared to a normal capacitor. It also has a quick charging and discharging time in comparison to other sources of electrical energy. Due to this advantage, supercapacitors are often used as an additional energy source in an electric car. During regenerative braking, the supercapacitor can be charged and hence store electrical energy more quickly. In this paper, a simple supercapacitor charging scheme was designed during the regenerative braking in an electric car. The designed charging scheme of supercapacitor is then implemented and tested in electric car simulator. The simulator was firstly built based on a previously published simulator known as Protodrive. The main components of the simulator are two direct current motors (DCMs) with a linked axis of rotation. The scheme is then tested in the simulator by using three profiles of a designed road, i.e. one hill, two hills and trapezoidal road's contour. The test result shows that the amount of supercapacitor charging current is proportional to the amount of road profile's slope angle.