Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control.

Received August 14, 2015;

Accepted manuscript posted September 23, 2016. doi:10.1115/1.4034803
Copyright (c) 2016 by ASME

Virtual Vehicle Control Concept for Hydrostatic

Dynamometer Control

Co

py
ed

ite
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Zhekang Du, Tan Cheng, Perry Y. Li, Kai Loon Cheong and Thomas R. Chase
Center of Compact and Efficient Fluid Power
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455.
Email: {duxxx139,cheng164, lixxx099, cheo0013, trchase}@umn.edu.
Please send all correspondence to Perry Y. Li.

Ma
nu

sc
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ip

tN

ot

ABSTRACT
An approach for controlling a hydrostatic dynamometer for the Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) testing of hybrid
vehicles is proposed and experimentally evaluated. The hydrostatic dynamometer, which is capable of absorbing
and regenerating power, was specifically designed and built in-house to evaluate the fuel economy and control
strategy of a hydraulic hybrid vehicle being developed. Unlike a chassis dynamometer whose inertia is similar
to the inertia of the vehicle being tested, the inertia of this hydro-static dynamometer is only 3% of the actual
vehicle. While this makes the system low cost, compact and flexible for testing vehicles with different weights
and drag characteristics, control challenges result. In particular, the dynamometer must apply, in addition to the
torques to mimic the wind and road drag, also the torques to mimic the acceleration and deceleration of the missing
inertia. To avoid estimating the acceleration and deceleration, which would be a non-causal operation, a virtual
vehicle concept is introduced. The virtual vehicle model generates, in response to the applied vehicle torque, a
reference speed profile which represents the behavior of the actual vehicle if driven on the road. This reformulates
the dynamometer control problem into one of enabling the actual vehicle-dynamometer shaft to track the speed of
the virtual vehicle, instead of directly applying a desired torque. To track the virtual vehicle speed, a controller
with feedforward and feedback components is designed using an experimentally validated dynamic model of the
dynamometer. The approach has been successfully tested on a power-split hydraulic hybrid vehicle with acceptable
virtual vehicle speed and dynamometer torque tracking performance.
Introduction
Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) simulation is an efficient technique to develop and test complex real-time embedded systems. A HIL system reduces testing complexity by using only part of the hardware which needs to be tested, while the
remaining hardware is simulated on the computer. HIL is widely used in the automotive industry to verify the performance
of production powertrain controller modules (PCM) [1].
A prototype hydraulic hybrid passenger vehicle test-bed is being developed within the Center for Compact and Efficient
Fluid Power (CCEFP) to advance hydraulic hybrid technologies. While simulations can predict fuel economy and performance of the vehicle, experimental validation is still necessary. Outdoor road tests require a test track and results may not be
repeatable due to variable environmental conditions such as wind, rain, snow, and road and traffic conditions. A reliable HIL
system, such as a dynamometer (or dyno in short), can enable reliable and consistent measurements in the laboratory and not
be influenced by environmental factors. Furthermore, a dynamometer allows the comparison, development, and tuning of
various control strategies for different vehicle characteristics and driving conditions. To this end, a hydrostatic dynamometer
capable of both absorbing and regenerating energy (a necessity for testing hybrid vehicles) has recently been developed in
our group [2].

Ac

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To appear in the ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems Measurement and Control. Original submission: August 16, 2015. Revised: May 23, 2016 and
July 20, 2016
A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the 2014 ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Conference, San Antonio, TX.

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Fig. 1.

Virtual vehicle dynamometer control concept.

ite
d

Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control. Received August 14, 2015;
Accepted manuscript posted September 23, 2016. doi:10.1115/1.4034803
Copyright (c) 2016 by ASME

Ac

ce

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tN

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Commercial chassis dynamometers usually have heavy roller drums to simulate the inertia of the vehicle being tested.
The rolling mass is designed to be close to the vehicle inertia so that when the vehicle is accelerating/decelerating, most
of the inertia effect is automatically taken care of by the rolling mass. The dynamometer needs only compensate for the
road/aerodynamic drag which can be calculated directly from the wheel speed. On the other hand, hydrostatic dynamometers
which use hydraulic pump/motors to provide the braking or regeneration torque on the vehicle have high power density and
low inertias. For example, the inertia of the dynamometer in [2] is around 3% of the intended vehicle inertia even with the
addition of a small flywheel. They are therefore more compact, low cost, flexible and have fast response.
A unique challenge in controlling a low inertia dynamometer is the need to emulate the acceleration/deceleration loads
related to the large difference in inertia. One approach is to apply the torque according to the acceleration estimate from a
Kalman filter [3]. However, this is an inherently non-causal process since acceleration is a result of the torques applied by
the powertrain and the dynamometer. Since the applied dynamometer torque should be a function of the acceleration, any
delay in estimation will inevitably lead to inaccurate emulation when acceleration/deceleration is high.
In this paper, we propose a virtual vehicle control concept to enable a low inertia dynamometer to accurately emulate
the dynamic load on the vehicle. The main idea, illustrated in Fig. 1, is to introduce a virtual vehicle dynamic model with
information of the intended vehicle, such as inertia and road and aerodynamic drag characteristics. For a given applied
vehicle torque supplied by the powertrain, this model generates, in real time, a reference vehicle speed which represents the
behavior of the vehicle with the intended vehicle inertia and environmental drag conditions. The control objective for the
dynamometer becomes one of exerting the correct torque so that the actual speed of the common vehicle-dynamometer shaft
follows that of the reference generated by the virtual vehicle model. The need for the non-causal acceleration estimation can
thus be avoided. When the actual speed tracks the virtual reference speed, the torque applied by the dynamometer on the
vehicle will be exactly the same as if the vehicle is driving on the ground with full effect of the intended vehicle inertia and
drag.
A variety of control algorithms can be designed to ensure that the vehicle-dynamometer shaft speed tracks the virtual
vehicle speed. In this paper, we estimate the applied vehicle torque and use a combination of feedforward control of the
required dynamometer torque and feedback stabilization that is based upon affine parameterization and sensitivity shaping.
The controller has been implemented on the dynamometer and the virtual vehicle control concept has been experimentally
validated.
In the literature, development and use of hydraulic dynamometers are mainly for testing engine performance [411].
One of the earliest reports of using a dynamometer for testing a complete powertrain with simulated load and engine is [12].
Control studies of hydraulic dynamometers in the literature are few. In [10, 11], a transient hydrostatic engine dynamometer
is controlled with the desired torque to be applied to the engine being obtained through a simulation of the rest of the vehicle.
However, the torque associated with the acceleration and deceleration of the missing inertia was not implemented. More
recently, a nonlinear controller is developed for another transient hydrostatic engine dynamometer to track a predetermined
engine speed trajectory in [9]. The control is based on feedback linearization and estimating the engine speed and acceleration
using a Kalman filter. In [13], control approaches and performance limitations for dynamic emulation systems are considered,
using the electro-hydraulic load emulator for an earthmoving vehicle powertrain system as an example. Their objective is to
emulate the output response of the closed loop system, consisting of the actual hardware and the simulated environment, to
a physically applied or simulated exogenous input. In contrast to [9, 13], the vehicle dynamometer control objective in this
paper is to emulate the behavior of the load (missing inertia, wind/road drag) in response to the applied torque and speed of
the powertrain, which themselves are generated in the closed loop.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the configuration of the hydrostatic dynamometer.
Section 3 explains the virtual vehicle control concept. Section 4 describes the modeling and system identification of the
dyno system. Section 5 presents the controller design. Section 6 presents the experimental results. Section 7 contains
concluding remarks.

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Fig. 2.

Schematic of the hydrostatic dynamometer

System Description
The hydrostatic dynamometer system consists of a hydraulic power supply unit, an accumulator, a proportional directional valve and two swash plate pump/motors that can go overcenter connected in tandem (Fig. 2). The displacements of
the pump/motors are used as the primary control input to control the load on the vehicle. By operating them in pumping or
motoring modes, both load absorbing and regenerating events can be emulated. The proportional directional valve is normally fully opened to allow unobstructed fluid flow, but it can also be used as the secondary high bandwidth control in case
the pump/motor displacement actuation is deemed too slow. They are not used this way in the current study. During load
absorbing events, energy from the vehicle is used to charge the hydraulic accumulator. During regenerating events, energy
in the hydraulic accumulator is discharged and returned to the vehicle. The hydraulic power unit is used to ensure that the
accumulator maintains a sufficiently high and nearly constant pressure.
The shaft of the dyno pump/motors is mechanically connected to the output shaft of the vehicle transmission, prior to
the final drive differential, through a torque cell which provides speed and torque measurements (Fig 3). The dynamics of
the common vehicle-dyno shaft are:

tN

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py
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ite
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Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control. Received August 14, 2015;
Accepted manuscript posted September 23, 2016. doi:10.1115/1.4034803
Copyright (c) 2016 by ASME

(1)
(2)

sc
r

ip

= Tveh + TDyno
JSha f t
JSha f t := JTrans + JDyno

ed

Ma
nu

where Jsha f t is the sum of the inertia of vehicle drive train, JTrans , and the inertia of the dyno, JDyno . Tveh is the applied vehicle
torque on the transmission output shaft, TDyno is the applied dyno torque and Tmeas is the torque cell measurement. Because
the vehicle is stationary in dynamometer testing, JTrans is only a small fraction of the equivalent inertia of the intended
vehicle if it is driven on the road. In our system, which incorporates a small flywheel, JSha f t represents 3% of the inertia
of a typical 1000kg vehicle.
By considering the individual dynamics of the dyno inertia and of the vehicle transmission (e.g. via the two free bodies
obtained by cutting the transmission output shaft at the torque cell in Fig. 3) and (1), the torque cell measurement can be
shown to be a combination of the vehicle applied torque and dyno applied torque:
JDyno
JTrans
Tveh +
TDyno
JSha f t
JSha f t

pt

Tmeas =

(3)

Ac

ce

Only when JDyno  JTrans can one assume that the measured torque is the vehicle applied torque Tveh . This is true in our case,

Fig. 3.

Free body diagram of vehicle-dyno shaft

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Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control. Received August 14, 2015;
Accepted manuscript posted September 23, 2016. doi:10.1115/1.4034803
Copyright (c)
2016
ASME
since
theby
dynamometer
has been augmented with a small flywheel so that JDyno = 0.2436 kg-m2 , JTrans = 0.0064 kg-m2 and
Jsha f t = 0.25 kg-m2 .

Virtual Vehicle dynamometer control concept

To introduce the virtual vehicle control concept, the dynamics of the virtual vehicle are first defined in Section 3.1,
and the error attributed to the non-causal acceleration effects is illustrated. The method for modifying the control scheme to
avoid the non-causal error is described in Section 3.2.
Virtual Vehicle dynamics
The virtual vehicle dynamics mimic the behavior of the intended vehicle to be tested given the applied vehicle torque.
This includes the inertial dynamics as well as any aerodynamic and road drag. In terms of translational vehicle speed v, they
are:

py
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ite
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3.1

Mveh v = Fveh Fdrag (v)

(4)

Co

where Mveh is the mass of the vehicle, Fdrag (v) is the road and wind drag, and Fveh is the applied traction force. Note that
Mveh and Fdrag (v) need not correspond to the actual vehicle but can be defined arbitrarily for testing vehicles with different
weights, aerodynamic and tire/road characteristics.
Eq.(4) is converted to the rotational domain in terms of the rotation speed of the transmission output shaft

ot

veh = (d /Rw ) v

tN

where d and Rw are the ratio of the output differential gear and the wheel radius, so that:
(5)

sc
r

ip

veh = Tveh Tdrag (veh )

Jveh

Ma
nu

where Jveh , Tveh and Tdrag are the equivalent vehicle inertia, vehicle torque, and vehicle drag with respect to the transmission
output port:

Jveh := Mveh

R2w
2d

Rw
Fveh
d
Rw
Tdrag (veh ) :=
Fdrag (v)
d

ed

Tveh :=

veh Tdrag (veh )

TDyno = (Jveh JSha f t )

(6)

Ac

ce

pt

In order for the dynamometer to emulate on-the-road driving, from Eqs. (1) and (5), the dynamometer should apply, on the
vehicle output shaft, the load of:

where the first term corresponds to the difference in inertia, and the second term corresponds to aerodynamic and road drag.
veh is
Note that direct implementation of (6) is not strictly possible since the measurement or estimation of the acceleration
non-causal. Specifically, the acceleration is dependent on the control TDyno applied to it in (1).
veh causally, a delay or a causal dirty differentiator such as accss+1 , where acc is the filter time
Example: To estimate
constant, is often needed. To see its effect, we assume linear dynamics for simplicity and suppose that the virtual (target)
vehicle dynamics are:
Mveh v + bveh v = Fveh

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(7)

Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control. Received August 14, 2015;
Accepted manuscript posted September 23, 2016. doi:10.1115/1.4034803
Copyright (c) 2016 by ASME
60

Test stand speed

Target vehicle speed

Speed [m/s]

50
40
30
20
10
0

10

10

Time - [s]

ite
d

5 10

4
3

1
0
-1
-2
-3

Dyno force
Ideal dyno force
Vehicle force

-4
-5

Speeds (top) and torques (bottom) if the acceleration estimation approach is used for the example.

ot

Fig. 4.

Co

Time - [s]

py
ed

Force [N]

tN

while the actual test vehicle-dynamometer dynamics are:

Mtest vtest = Fveh + Fdyno

ip

Let the dyno force be defined by:

(8)

sc
r

Fdyno := (Mveh Mtest )vtest bveh vtest

ed

Ma
nu

where vtest is obtained using the dirty differentiator on vtest with some measurement noise. In this example, suppose that
Mveh = 20Mtest = 1000kg, bveh = 20N/(m/s), acc = 1s (to emphasize the effect) and that the vehicle force Fveh is commanded
by a driver simulated to be a P-I controller tracking a 3 rad/s sinusoidal drive cycle. Figure 4 shows that the virtual (target)
vehicle speed v(t) differs from the test vehicle-dyno speed vtest (t). The applied dyno force also differs significantly from the
ideal dyno force (i.e. that with vtest obtained (perfectly) from post-processing). This dynamometer control will (most likely)
lead to overly optimistic fuel economy results.

Control Concept
Given a measurement or estimate of the applied vehicle torque Tveh , the expected transmission output shaft speed profile
veh (t) can be computed in real time by integrating:

ce

pt

3.2

veh = Tveh Tdrag (veh )

Jveh

(9)

Ac

Eq.(9) is referred to as the virtual vehicle model, and veh as the virtual vehicle (shaft) speed.
To avoid the non-causal operation of estimating the acceleration as in [3] or the dirty differentiator in the example,
instead of implementing Eq.(6) directly, the dynamometer will control the actual combined dyno-vehicle shaft dynamics (
in Eq.(1)) according to the virtual vehicle speed (veh ) (computed in real time based on the measurement or an estimate of
the applied vehicle torque Tveh and the virtual vehicle dynamics in Eq.(9)).
Suppose that the estimate of the vehicle torque Tveh is accurate, and indeed we are successful in making (t) veh (t),
then comparing Eqs.(1) and (5), the dynamometer torque would be:
TDyno =

Jveh JSha f t
Jsha f t
Tdrag ()
Tveh
Jveh
Jveh

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(10)

Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control. Received August 14, 2015;
Accepted manuscript posted September 23, 2016. doi:10.1115/1.4034803
Copyright (c) 2016 by ASME
60

Test stand speed

Target vehicle speed

Speed [m/s]

50
40
30
20
10
0

10

10

Time - [s]

ite
d

5 10

4
3

1
0
-1
-2
-3

Dyno force
Ideal dyno force
Vehicle force

-4
-5

Speeds (top) and torques (bottom) if the virtual vehicle approach is used

Ma
nu

sc
r

ip

tN

ot

Fig. 5.

Co

Time - [s]

py
ed

Force [N]

Controller scheme of the hydrostatic dynamometer

ed

Fig. 6.

Tdrag ()
TDyno = (Jveh JSha f t )

(11)

Ac

ce

pt

Substituting Tveh using Eq.(1) gives:

which is exactly the desired dynamometer torque in Eq.(6) that could not be implemented directly.
The advantage of this approach is that the original task of controlling the dyno torque becomes a speed control problem,
which respects system causality. Moreover, it allows one to test different vehicles under different road conditions by simply
tuning the parameters for the virtual vehicle dynamics (9).
Example contd: In the virtual vehicle control approach, Fdyno is determined by a controller (here, a P-I + feedforward
control for simplicity) to coordinate the virtual vehicle v and the actual vehicle speed (vtest ). Figure 5 shows that the virtual
vehicle speed v(t) matches the test vehicle speed vtest (t) and the applied dyno force matches the ideal dyno force. Hence, the
desired emulation is obtained.


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Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control. Received August 14, 2015;
Accepted manuscript posted September 23, 2016. doi:10.1115/1.4034803
Copyright (c)
by ASME
4 2016
Modeling
and Identification of the Dynamometer Dynamics
The dyno torque consists of the viscous damping and the pump/motor torque. The pump/motor displacement dynamics
are assumed to be first order. Thus,
TDyno = b + Tpm


a
P
P
Tpm (t) = D(t) = Dmax
[U()]
2
2
s+a
{z
}
|

(12)

= b + Tveh + K U(t)
Jsha f t

py
ed

ite
d

where P is the system pressure which is regulated to be constant at 19.3 MPa (2800 psi), D(t) is the actual displacement
of the pump/motor, Dmax = 56 cc is the maximum displacement of the pump/motor, a is the bandwidth of the swashplate
dynamics, b is the damping coefficient, U [0, 1] is the normalized displacement command input, and is the pump/motors
mean mechanical efficiency.
Thus, the dynamics of the common vehicle-dyno shaft in (1) becomes:
(13)

a K/Jsha f t
(s)
=
U(s) (s + a)(s + b/Jsha f t )

(14)

tN

GOL (s) =

ot

Co

where K = PDmax /(2). The combined inertia of the vehicle drive train and dyno was estimated from CAD models and
engine specifications to be Jsha f t = 0.25 kg-m2 .
Combining Eqs.(1) and (12), the open loop transfer function from the pump/motor command U(s) to the shaft speed
(s) (see Fig.6) is:

sc
r

ip

In order to validate the structure of GOL (s) in (14) and to identify the unknown parameters a, b and K, system identification experiments have been performed. Because of the small physical damping b, an inner closed loop is formed with a
small proportional feedback gain of K p = 0.01 and with Tveh = 0 to form a closed loop system (Fig. 6):
K p GOL (s)
1 + K p GOL (s)

Ma
nu

G p (s) =

(15)

ed

System identification is then performed on G p (s) by applying a series of sinusoidal reference speeds and measuring its gains
and phases. The model parameters in (14) are optimized to match the measured gains and phases. This way, a second order
closed loop transfer function was identified to be (Fig. 7):
G p,2nd (s) =

8.28
s2 + 2.9s + 9.2

(16)

GOL (s) =

828
(s + 2.539)(s + 0.3574)

(17)

Ac

ce

pt

The unwrapped open loop system from G p (s) is:

This corresponds to a swash-plate bandwidth of a = 2.539 rad/s, damping coefficient of b = 0.3574rad/sJsha f t = 0.0893
Nm/(rad/s), K = 81.5 Nm and mean pump/motor efficiency of = 0.47, which are reasonable values.
The second order model (16) shows a slight mismatch in phase as shown in Fig. 7. For control design, a 3rd order closed
loop model is also obtained:
G p,3rd (s) =

169.2
(s3 + 23.2s2 + 72.3s + 180)

Note that the 2nd order model and the 3rd order model have nearly identical magnitudes but differ slightly in phase.

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Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control. Received August 14, 2015;
Accepted manuscript posted September 23, 2016. doi:10.1115/1.4034803
Copyright (c) 2016 by ASME

10

Data
2nd order
3rd order

-1

Phase - deg

10 -2 -1
10

10 0

10 1

-50
Data
2nd order
3rd order

-100
-150
-200
-250

10 0
Frequency - rad/s

10 1

py
ed

10 -1

ite
d

Gain

10

Fig. 7. Frequency response of the closed loop transfer function G p (s) using a proportional control gain of K p
order model (red) and a 3rd order model (black).

Virtual vehicle speed tracking control

In this section, we design a controller that enables the combined dyno/transmission shaft in (1) to track the virtual
vehicle speed veh as given in (9). The control scheme (Fig. 6) consists of a feedforward component and a feedback
component. The feedforward controller is intended to supply the major control effort for the drag and missing inertia load.
The feedback controller is designed to account for model uncertainty and disturbances.

tN

ot

Co

= 0.01 compared with a 2nd

Estimation of vehicle torque Tveh (t)

The estimate of the vehicle applied torque Tveh (t) is used to drive the virtual vehicle dynamics in Eq. (9) and in the design
of the feedforward control term. It is obtained as follows. Consider the torque measurement Eq. (3) and the transmission
shaft dynamics:

sc
r

ip

5.1

= Tveh Tmeas
Jtrans

(19)

Tveh





0 1/Jtrans
0
0
Tveh


 
1/Jtrans
L

Tmeas 1 ( )
0
L2
=

(20)

ed

d
dt

Ma
nu

where Tmeas is the torque cell measurement, Tveh is the applied vehicle torque which is assumed to be slowly time varying
and Jtrans is the inertia of the transmission. Then, Tveh is estimated from a Luenberger observer [15]:

Feedforward Control
The feedforward controller is designed based on Eq (10) to provide the desired feedforward torque:

Ac

5.2

ce

pt

where is the measured common vehicle-dyno shaft speed, L1 and L2 are the observer gains chosen to set the poles for the
observer. By setting the poles to be fast, time variation of Tveh (t) within the observer bandwidth can also be estimated.

Tf f =

Jveh JSha f t
JSha f t
Tveh
Tdrag (veh )
Jveh
Jveh

(21)

where Tveh is the estimated vehicle applied torque in Eq.(20).

The feedforward displacement control input U f f (s) in Fig. 6 is then generated by a causal approximate inversion of the
pump/motor torque model in (12):
U f f (s) =

s+a
T f f (s)
aK s+

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(22)

Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control. Received August 14, 2015;
Accepted manuscript posted September 23, 2016. doi:10.1115/1.4034803
Copyright (c) 2016 by ASME
0

Magnitude gain [dB]

10

Experimental
Target

10

10

10

10

Frequency[rad/s]
Experimental
Target

100
150
200
1
10

10

10

10

Fig. 8.

py
ed

Frequency[rad/s]

ite
d

Phase[degree]

0
50

Target and experimental complementary sensitivity function To

Co

where is large compared to the desired bandwidth.

Feedback control
The feedback controller is designed directly around the identified closed loop system with the proportional gain G p (s)
in Eq.(16) (see Fig. 6). The 3rd order identified model in (18) is used. The feedback is designed using the affine parameterization of all stabilizing controls to shape the complementary sensitivity function [15].
Since G p (s) is stable, the set of all controllers C(s) that stabilizes G p (s) is given by:

ip

Q(s)
1 Q(s)G p (s)

sc
r

C(s) =

tN

ot

5.3

(23)

where Q(s) is any stable transfer function to be designed. The complementary sensitivity function is given by:

Ma
nu

To (s) = Q(s)G p (s)

(24)

Thus, Q(s) can be chosen to shape To (s). The target To (s) is chosen as a third order low pass filter (Fig. 8):
2000
(s + 20)(s2 + 20s + 100)

(25)

ed

To =

Ac

ce

pt

Since the identified model is valid only below 20 rad/s, this design ensures robustness by making To ( j) roll off before

uncertainties become significant. Then Q(s) = G1

p,3rd (s)To (s) is a proper transfer function. The controller C(s) is designed
to be:
C(s) =

Q(s)
1 Q(s)G p (s)

11.82(s + 20)(s2 + 3.162s + 9)

=
s(s2 + 40s + 500)

(26)

Fig. 8 shows the achieved complementary sensitivity function with this controller obtained experimentally by tracking
sinusoids of different frequencies. It indicates that the target complementary sensitivity is indeed achieved.

Experimental Results
The dynamometer control is applied to the in-house built hydrostatic dynamometer and tested experimentally using
the hydraulic hybrid passenger vehicle (HHPV) in Fig. 9 which is developed in our lab. The vehicle has a diesel engine

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Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control. Received August 14, 2015;
Accepted manuscript posted September 23, 2016. doi:10.1115/1.4034803
Copyright (c) 2016 by ASME

Dynamometer

ite
d

Polaris Ranger outfitted

with custom powersplit
hydraulic hybrid transmission

Vehicle

py
ed

Torque sensor
Drive shaft
Flywheel

Accumulator

Co

Directional valve

ot

Charge pump
Hydraulic power supply

Fig. 9.

tN

Tandem pump/motors

Top: Hydrostatic dynamometer (rear) connected to an experimental hydraulic hybrid vehicle (front). Bottom: Components of the

ip

hydrostatic dynamometer.

Ma
nu

sc
r

and a hydraulic input-coupled power-split transmission, hybridized by a pair of hydraulic accumulators for energy storage.
The hydraulic hybrid vehicle is controlled by a 3-level control scheme described in [16, 17] that aims to achieve the driver
demanded vehicle torque in an energy efficient manner. In order to have repeatable testing results, the driver is simulated by a
virtual driver controller which is a proportional-integral speed controller. The virtual driver controller, the hybrid powertrain
controller, and the dynamometer controller operate independently of each other (Fig. 10).
The mass of the intended vehicle tested is Mveh = 500 kg and the road/aerodynamic drag in (4) is [18]:
1
Fdrag = CD A f v2
2


 v 2.5 
44.7

ed

+ Mveh g fo + 3.24 fs

(27)

Ac

ce

pt

where CD = 0.5 is the drag coefficient, A f = 1.784m2 is the frontal area, = 1.29kg/m3 is the air density, g = 9.31m/s2 is
the acceleration due to gravity, fo = 0.0095 and fs = 0.0035 are the coefficients for rolling resistance. The drag coefficients
correspond to the vehicle in Fig. 9. The final drive ratio is d = 3.45 and wheel radius is Rw = 0.3095m. Note that the target
vehicle parameters do not need to correspond to a vehicle that has been built.
The Environmental Protection Agencys (EPA) Urban Dynamometer Driving Schedule (UDDS) and Highway Fuel
Economy Driving Schedule (HWFET) with some modifications1 are used as reference speed profiles to test the efficacy of
the dynamometer control scheme. For verifying the performance of the dynamometer control, the HHPV is operated in
continuously variable transmission (CVT) mode in which the accumulator pressure is kept at a nearly constant pressure.
Figures 11-12 show the actual vehicle-dyno shaft speed and the virtual vehicle speed veh for the modified UDDS
and HWFET drive cycles respectively. The errors in tracking the virtual vehicle speed are shown in Fig. 13. Despite the
errors being larger during high acceleration/decceleration, the actual speed tracks the virtual vehicle speed reasonably with
RMS errors of 17 rpm (UDDS) and 11 rpm (HWFET) which are 1.25% and 0.8% of the mean speeds of the cycles. This
demonstrates the effectiveness of the dyno-speed controller design in section 5.

1 The

drive cycle are modified so that speed does not violate the low speed limit of the dynamometer hardware configuration.

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Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control. Received August 14, 2015;
Accepted manuscript posted September 23, 2016. doi:10.1115/1.4034803
Copyright (c) 2016 by ASME

Fig. 10.

Dynamometer testing of hydraulic hybrid vehicle involves three independent controllers: dynamometer controller, hydraulic hybrid

Virtual Vehicle Speed

Actual Shaft Speed

1800

1400

py
ed

Output Speed (rpm)

1600

1200
1000
800

Co

600
400
400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

time

ot

Actual speed and virtual vehicle speed of the vehicle-dyno shaft while driving the modified UDDS.

1800

ip
sc
r

1400
1200
1000
800
600
400

Ma
nu

Output Speed (rpm)

1600

200

300

400

500

600

Virtual Vehicle Speed

Actual Shaft Speed

700

800

900

1000

time

Actual speed and virtual vehicle speed of the vehicle-dyno shaft while driving the modified HWFET.

ed

Fig. 12.

1600

tN

Fig. 11.

ite
d

powertrain controller and virtual driver controller.

Speed Tracking Error

RMS = 16.6 rpm

50

50

100
200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

Time [sec]

60

Speed Tracking Error [rpm]

Ac

ce

pt

Speed Tracking Error [rpm]

100

Speed Tracking Error

40

RMS = 11.2 rpm

20
0
20
40
60
80

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

Time [sec]

Fig. 13. Error between actual speed and the desired virtual vehicle vehicle-dyno shaft speed while driving the UDDS (top) and HWFET
(bottom) cycles.

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Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control. Received August 14, 2015;
Accepted manuscript posted September 23, 2016. doi:10.1115/1.4034803
Copyright (c) 2016 by ASME
Realtime Tveh

30

Postprocessed Tveh

Torque

20
10
0
10

Fig. 14.

582

584

586

588

590
592
Time [s]

594

596

598

600

ite
d

20

Vehicle torque obtained using real-time observer Eq.(20) and using off-line calculation in portion of the modified UDDS test.

40

py
ed

Applied torque
Des. torque-output spd
Des torque-vir. veh

30
20

Torque[Nm]

10
0
-10
-20
-30

-50
200

400

600

800

1000

1200

Time[sec]

30

10

1600

tN

Torque[Nm]

1400

ot

20

Co

-40

-10
-20
-30

-50
550

600

650

ip

Applied torque
Des. torque-output spd
Des torque-vir. veh

-40

700

750

800

sc
r

Time[sec]

Ma
nu

Fig. 15. Applied dyno torque and desired dyno torques computed from output speed and from virtual vehicle speed while driving the modified
UDDS. Top: full cycle; Bottom: zoomed in view.

pt

ed

The real-time vehicle torque estimate Tveh obtained using the observer (20) is verified by comparing it with Tveh computed

off-line from (19) using the measured shaft speed (t) and the torque cell measurement Tmeas (t), where (t)
is obtained in
conjunction with a 2.5Hz 2nd order zero-phase low pass filter. A portion of this comparison is shown in Fig. 14 which shows
that they are virtually identical.
In order to verify that the dynamometer is applying the correct load, the actual dyno torque and the desired dyno torque
are calculated in post-processing and compared. The actual dyno torque TDyno is estimated based on the torque measurement
Tmeas and the dynamics of JDyno :
Tmeas
TDyno = JDyno

Ac

ce

The desired dyno torque is computed based on Eq. (6). There are two options for the speed profile veh in (6): i) the actual
measured speed , or ii) the virtual vehicle speed veh . Since the entire profile is known, either profile can be differentiated
off-line, in conjunction with a zero-phase low pass filter (5th order Butterworth filter with 5 rad/s cutoff) to obtain the
acceleration. Figures 15-16 show the torque tracking performance for the UDDS and HWFET respectively with respect to
the desired torque profiles. Figure 17 shows the torque tracking errors. When the desired torque is computed using the output
speed , the RMS torque errors are 6.1 Nm (UDDS) and 3.9 Nm (HWFET). However, when they are computed using the
virtual vehicle speed veh , the RMS torque errors are only 2.6 Nm (UDDS) and 1.6 Nm (HWFET). From Fig. 15-bottom,

it is seen that the larger error when is used to compute the desired torque can be attributed to the oscillatory nature of
even in post-processing (and more so in real
rather than TDyno itself. This highlights the inherent difficulty in estimating
time for feedback) and the advantage of the virtual vehicle control concept.
Figure 18 (top) shows the feedforward and feedback control efforts in terms of the pump/motor displacements. As
intended from the controller design, the feedforward component is more dominant in providing the necessary actuation to
track the desired virtual vehicle speed. However, the feedback component is also necessary to eliminate tracking error due

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Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control. Received August 14, 2015;
Accepted manuscript posted September 23, 2016. doi:10.1115/1.4034803
Copyright (c) 2016 by ASME
20
Applied torque
Des. torque - output spd
Des torque - vir. veh

10

Torque[Nm]

0
-10
-20
-30
-40
-50
200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

Time[sec]

Fig. 16.

Applied dyno torque and desired dyno torques computed from output speed and from virtual vehicle speed while driving the modified

ite
d

HWFET.

30

10
0

-10
-20
-30

Error wrt desired torque from output speed

Error wrt desired torque from virtual vehicle

-40
200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

Time [sec]

1600

Co

Error wrt desired torque from output speed

Error wrt desired torque from virtual vehicle

20

10

ot

Torque [Nm]

py
ed

Torque error [Nm]

20

-10

-30
200

300

400

500

tN

-20

600

700

800

900

1000

Time [sec]

sc
r

ip

Fig. 17. Error between actual dyno torque and post-processed desired dyno torque from output speed and from virtual vehicle speed while
driving the UDDS (top) and HWFET (bottom).

Displacement

0.4

0
0.2

Ma
nu

0.2

0.4
600

3000
2800

ed

Pressure [Psi]

3200

620

640

660

680

700

720

FB
FF

740

760

780

800

Time [sec]

System Pressure

2600

620

640

660

680

700

720

740

760

780

800

Time [sec]

pt

2400
600

Ac

ce

Fig. 18. Feedforward vs feedback control efforts (top) and the variation of dynamometer system pressure (bottom) during the UDDS drive
cycle test.

to model uncertainty and unmodeled disturbances. Figure 18 (bottom) also shows that the dynamometer system pressure P
remains relatively constant within 18.6 2.1 MPa (2700 300 psi), which was an assumption in modeling the pump/motor
torque in (12).

Conclusion
A hydrostatic dynamometer with its high power density and low inertia has the advantages of being low cost, compact
and flexible. This paper presents a novel virtual vehicle control concept that eliminates the non-causal operation of estimating
the acceleration. With this concept, the control system needs only track the real time generated virtual vehicle speed in order
to emulate the programmable drag and acceleration/ deceleration load. A feedback/feedforward controller has been designed

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Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control. Received August 14, 2015;
Accepted manuscript posted September 23, 2016. doi:10.1115/1.4034803
Copyright (c)
by ASME
for 2016
this purpose.
The control concept has been experimentally validated. The dynamometer is now being actively utilized in
the laboratory for testing and evaluating different hydraulic hybrid vehicle designs and control schemes.
The control performance is acceptable for assessing vehicle fuel economy by controlling the pump/motor displacement alone. System identification results indicate that the bandwidth of the pump/motor is indeed somewhat limited (2.5
rad/s). Future work will consider using the proportional directional control valve in Fig. 2 as an active control elements for
improving the control.

ite
d

Acknowledgements
This material is based upon work performed within the Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power (CCEFP) which
is supported by the National Science Foundation under grant number EEC-0540834.

Ac

ce

pt

ed

Ma
nu

sc
r

ip

tN

ot

Co

py
ed

References
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