Energy Optimal Control for Formula One Race Car
2022-01-0446
03/29/2022
- Event
- Content
- Formula One (F1) is considered to be the forefront of innovation for the automotive and motorsport industry. One of the key provisions has been towards the inclusion of the Energy Recovery System (ERS) since 2014 in F1 regulations. ERS comprises Motor Generator Unit-Heat (MGU-H), Motor Generator Unit-Kinetic (MGU-K) and an Energy Storage (ES). This has not only converted the conventional powertrain into a hybrid power-split device, but also imposed constraints on the fuel energy available, energy recovered and deployed by MGU-K,and charge stored in ES, along with various other parameters. Although the objective for a F1 race is to minimize lap-time, it is obvious that there is no unique control path or decision to meet this objective. This build up needs to optimally control the powersplit and energy of the system. In contrast to lap-time optimal control, which is focused on lap-time minimisation, energy optimal control ensures that the powertrain components operate optimally by minimizing the energy from each component over a desired vehicle speed trajectory. In this study, we propose an energy optimal control strategy for a F1 car by constructing a detailed force-balanced mathematical model of the F1 powertrain, identifying state-space variables, as well as regulated constraints and weighted-cost functions and then solving for minimizing cost function based on model-based optimisation inside GT-Suite using Discrete Optimisation and Genetic Algorithm. The obtained optimal trajectory is compared to the global optimum obtained by Dynamic Programming. Finally, the results are validated over in our high-fidelity GT-Drive based F1 powertrain simulator and also compared against conventional rule-based controls for added advantage to race performance and energy minimisation. The end result is the optimal strategy that results in minimal energy consumption for the provided speed trajectory over a single lap.
- Citation
- Javed, H., and Samuel, S., "Energy Optimal Control for Formula One Race Car," SAE Technical Paper 2022-01-0446, 2022, .