A Hybrid Vehicle Hardware-in-the-Loop System with Integrated Connectivity for eHorizon Functions Validation

Urbanization led to an increasing number of vehicles on the roads, resulting in more polluted air and more congested urban centers. This is being mitigated by the Hybrid Electric Vehicles equipped with telecommunication devices, which allow the implementation of predictive control strategies. This research is focused on the setup of an innovative and universal simulation environment for the development and the validation of predictive control strategies supported by Vehicle-to-Everything (V2x) connectivity. This helps the testing and validation of predictive control strategies, granting safety, reliability, and reproducibility. The simulation environment consists of a connected Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL) system to test a supervisory controller (Hybrid Control Unit) where the predictive functions will be implemented. In addition to all the advantages of a conventional HiL layout, it can exchange real data from cloud service providers and nearby devices. The over-the-air interfaces between the powertrain controllers, the cellular network, and the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS-G5) are handled using a custom connectivity control unit with proprietary functionalities. Finally, this work presents the testing of the end-to-end communication for both the short- and long-range data exchange between real controllers.