Volume 1: Energy Innovations: Accelerated Deployment, New Concepts, and Emerging Technologies

Sustainability in Electric Transportation: Minimizing Transportation Energy Peter H. Bauer, Eduardo F. Mello

Abstract

A variety of energy-saving concepts that exploit the special characteristics of electric drives are introduced. The confluence of three emerging concepts in transportation, namely electric drives, autonomous driving, and networked vehicles, enables the optimization of transportation efficiency in a way that drastically changes modern transportation, especially for passenger and commercial road vehicles. The paper addresses both, urban as well as highway driving situations and the associated optimization problems. It is shown that if the only term in the cost function is transportation energy, and all other conditions are formulated as constraints, quite substantial energy cost reductions are possible. Exploiting weather and environmental conditions is another important topic that is analyzed. The paper illustrates key ideas via several simulation examples.

Keywords Electric drives, autonomous vehicles, energy efficiency, optimization, speed profiles, environmental factors