A Novel Pneumatic Brake Pressure Control Algorithm for Regenerative Braking System of Electric Commercial Trucks

Since the control of brake pressure has a significant impact on regenerative braking performance of electric vehicles, a novel combined brake pressure control algorithm based on two high-speed on-off valves is developed to improve the precision and timeliness of pressure tracking for the regenerative braking system of electric commercial trucks in this paper. First, a comprehensive mathematical model of the valve control system is built up which is composed of several sub-models and verified by experiments. Second, a PID controller with pulse width modulation (PWM) and a fuzzy controller with cooperative PWM are separately adopted in the proposed combined control algorithm to substitute for the traditional PWM approach. Moreover, through the numerical simulation studies, better control performance is obtained in MATLAB/Simulink on the basis of the built models. Finally, the experimental tests under various typical braking pressure input signals are carried out to verify the simulation results. The comparison between the simulation and experimental results fully demonstrates that the proposed control algorithm is feasible and the dynamic performance of this combined valve control algorithm is considerably improved compared with the conventional PID control algorithm.