A Novel Method to Actively Damp the Vibration of the Hybrid Powertrain by Utilizing a Flywheel Integrated-Starter-Generator

In this paper, a novel method to actively damp the powertrain vibration by utilizing a flywheel integrated starter generator (FISG) is proposed and validated on the testbench. A more light-weighted, economical, and compact hybrid powertrain devoid of clutches or dampers is built by replacing its flywheel with the ISG rotor. Motor torque having the opposite phase of the engine torque is applied to reduce the vibration. As opposed to the passive methods, which usually make use of the inertial and/or the damping properties of the components to absorb the vibration, this active approach is defined as active damping. Firstly, active damping is proved to be theoretically feasible by simulation based on an engine torque observer. To get the practical-application-oriented motor torque waveform, the observer torque is then processed by considering some realistic factors, such as the motor’s response delay and the torque demand limit at MCU (Motor Control Unit), and is finally simplified as the rectangular waveform by off-line simulation. Secondly, an algorithm operating on the original resolver aimed at calculating the real-time crank position is proposed and programmed directly in the MCU. Finally, active damping is realized online utilizing a feedforward method by programming the crank-torque table in MCU. Experiments in both stable and transient conditions are conducted. Results show that active damping can attenuate the vibration effectively, especially over low speed and load ranges. The speed fluctuation range and the cyclic squared angular acceleration can be reduced by 79.7% and 89.7% respectively at 700 rpm when cranking. The crank vibration in transient conditions, including dragging and free deceleration, can also be suppressed, showing potential to realize fast and quiet engine start and halt.