Demands for low cost sustainable solutions have increased the use of and interest in complex hydromechanical transmissions for heavy off-road vehicles. In transmissions with multiplemodes, an important condition is to maintain the tractive force during the mode shifting event. For hybrid hydromechanical transmissions, with a direct connection to a hydraulic accumulator, the impressed system pressure caused by the hydraulic accumulator has not yet been observed to interfere with this condition. In this paper, a black box model approach is used to modify the hydraulic system after obtaining knowledge regarding how it is affected by a mode shift. A comparative study is carried out where a full vehicle model of a mobile working machine is simulated with two different hydraulic systems. The results show that different system solutions imply different demands on the included components, and that the mode shifting event is not a negligible factor in heavy hydraulic hybrid vehicles.

Hydraulic hybrid system solutions are promising in the quest for energy efficiency in heavy construction machines. Hardware-in-the-loop simulations, where hardware is included in software simulations in real time, may be used to facilitate the development process of these systems without the need to build expensive prototypes. In this paper, the displacement actuator of a prototype pump used in a hardware-in-the-loop simulation test rig is modelled and validated against hardware, in order to draw conclusions regarding its dynamic behaviour in a future control design. The results show that the dynamic response of the modelled displacement actuator is mainly determined by the system pressure as well as the response and geometry of the control valve.

The need for efficient propulsion in heavy vehicles has led to an increased interest in hybrid solutions. Hydraulic hybrids rely on variable hydraulic pumps/motors to continuously convert between hydraulic and mechanical power. This process is carried out via the implementation of secondary control which, in turn, is dependent on a fast displacement controller response. This paper reports on a study of a prototype axial piston pump of the in-line type, in which the displacement is measured with a sensor and controlled using a software-based controller. A pole placement control approach is used, in which a simple model of the pump is used to parametrise the controller using desired resonance and damping of the closed loop controller as input. The controller’s performance is tested in simulations and hardware tests on the prototype unit. The results show that the pole placement approach combined with a lead-compensator controller architecture is flexible, easy to implement and is able to deliver a fast response with high damping. The results will in the future be used in further research on full-vehicle control of heavy hydraulic hybrids.

This paper focuses on the low-level control of heavy complex hydraulic hybrids, taking stability and the dynamic properties of the included components into account. A linear model which can describe a high number of hybrid configurations in a straightforward manner is derived and used for the development of a general multiple input multiple output (MIMO) decoupling control strategy. This strategy is tested in non-linear simulations of an example vehicle and stability requirements for the low-level actuators are derived. The results show that static decoupling may be used to simplify the control problem to three individual loops controlling pressure, output speed and engine speed. In particular, the pressure and output speed loops rely on fast displacement controllers for stability. In addition, it was found that the decoupling is facilitated if the hydrostatic units have equal response. The low-level control of heavy complex hydraulic hybrids may thus imply other demands on actuators than what is traditionally assumed.

Fuel efficiency has become an increasingly important property of heavy mobile working machines. As a result, Hybrid Hydromechanical Transmissions (HMTs) are often considered for the propulsion of these vehicles. The introduction of hybrid HMTs does, however, come with a number of control-related challenges. To date, a great focus in the literature has been on high-level control aspects, concerning optimal utilization of the energy storage medium. In contrast, the main topic of this article is low-level control, with the focus on dynamic response and the ability to realize requested power flows accurately. A static decoupled Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) control strategy, based on a linear model of a general hybrid HMT, is proposed. The strategy is compared to a baseline approach in Hardware-In-the-Loop (HWIL) simulations of a reference wheel loader for two drive cycles. It was found that an important benefit of the decoupled control approach is that the static error caused by the system’s cross-couplings is minimized without introducing integrating elements. This feature, combined with the strategy’s general nature, motivates its use for multiple-mode transmissions in which the transmission configuration changes between the modes.