Nowadays, the hybridisation and the electrification of the powertrains for the marine sectors
are of paramount importance to reduce their carbon footprints. In this paper, a novel method is proposed
to schedule the modes-switch of an hybrid powertrain for marine applications. The considered system
is composed of an Internal Combustion ...
Nowadays, the hybridisation and the electrification of the powertrains for the marine sectors
are of paramount importance to reduce their carbon footprints. In this paper, a novel method is proposed
to schedule the modes-switch of an hybrid powertrain for marine applications. The considered system
is composed of an Internal Combustion Engine mounted in parallel with a Lynch DC Brushed Electric
Machine to deliver power at the propeller shaft. The two key-findings of this paper are: i) A compact
mathematical representation of the powertrain to model the energy balances and switching of the different
modes of operation. ii) A novel graph-inspired approach to determine the optimal operational mode
sequence. The objective is to find the modes schedule over a fixed time horizon that minimises both the
fuel consumed and the number of modes changes. The solution is motivated by both the moving horizon
principle and the shortest path identification algorithm, and it also relies on a predictive information of
the power cycle. Numerical simulations are undertaken, showing the benefits of the proposed scheme. The
proposed method is convenient to scale up for the integration of additional energy storage components or
new modes of operation.
