Large Size Optimization Problem for Power Management in a Fuel Cell Electric Race Car Using Combinatorial Approach

Hybrid electrical systems are complex to size because there is a strong dependence between components design and power management control law. In order to pre-size a hybrid rally race car, which uses hydrogen and batteries as energy sources, an offline power management method, which is formulated in a combinatorial form, is developed to be readily incorporated in a bi-level optimization problem. The exponential growth of memory space as a function of the size of the problem, in particular for long power profiles, is a well-known problem of this type of approach. This paper proposes solving techniques, which consist in using battery state trajectory following and constraints relaxation. Obtained results show satisfying improvements compared to the state of art. Sensitivity analyses show the influence of resolution parameters on the optimization problem solution and its required computation resources.