Integrated energy transducer for hybrid electric vehicles

The driveline for a hybrid electric vehicle utilizes both an internal combustion engine (ICE) and a battery to power the vehicle. The engine output torque can be used directly to drive the vehicle (parallel hybrid) or to drive a generator to produce electrical energy (series hybrid). The size of the ICE and its operating mode are significantly different in a hybrid vehicle than in a conventional ICE vehicle in which the ICE is the only power source to drive the vehicle. The disadvantages with current hybrid vehicles are that they often are heavy, complex and expensive systems. For a hybrid vehicle equipped with an integrated energy transducer such as the one presented in this paper, it is possible to reduce the number of components in the system and the rated power of components. Thereby the complexity, weight, size and cost of the system can be reduced.