General modeling and energy management optimization for the fuel cell electric tractor with mechanical shunt type

The fuel cell electric tractor has emerged as a new development direction in modern agriculture due to its energy-controllable and emission-reducing advantages. This paper focuses on improving the universality of basic research by studying the fuel cell electric tractor with mechanical shunt type (FCETMST). The bond graph model has the benefits of cross-physical system integration. To fill the gap in general modeling of electric tractors, an electromechanical hydraulic integrated machine model by utilizing the bond graph model, which includes energy system, drive system, lifting system and power take-off (PTO) system, is developed. The general power flow model of the electric tractor with mechanical shunt type is also derived. Lastly, the accuracy of the model is validated by analyzing the tractor’s traction characteristics. To further enhance energy efficiency, this paper proposes an energy management strategy (EMS) utilizing a multi-population genetic algorithm (MPGA) and compares it with a power following control strategy (PFCS) for a fuel cell/lithium battery composite energy system. The results base on the co-simulation by using AVL-Cruise and Matlab/Simulink to build a vehicle simulation model and EMS models, respectively, show that under ploughing and transportation conditions, compared with the traditional PFCS, using MPGA leads to reduce state of charge (SOC) fluctuations and the remaining SOC is 11.22 % and 6.1 % higher, respectively. The theoretical hydrogen fuel consumption is decreased by about 26.49 % and 36.21 %, respectively. This study can provide theoretical support for the modeling and energy management optimization of the electric tractor system.