Comprehensive Design and Control of Electric Powertrain Evaluation Platform for Next Generation EV/HEV Development

Electric powertrain or power control unit, which is the integral part of the EV/HEV, is consisting of the high voltage battery, DC/DC converter, inverter, and electric motor. To evaluate the powertrain performance is a crucial stage for its development. In this paper, a peak 150-kW powertrain evaluation system with 2006 Toyota Prius as the evaluated target is designed along with its control technique being elaborated. This system is constructed as grid-connected back-to-back inverters driving a 55kW IPM machine to work as the load to the Prius's powertrain. Operation modes of the system and the data collection are presented in the end. Overall, this platform extends an energy-saving solution for powertrain evaluation with the capability of sending the energy from the evaluated vehicle back to the grid compared to traditional dyno system which only dumps the power a passive load.