Intelligent Speed Control and Performance Investigation of a Vector Controlled Electric Vehicle Considering Driving Cycles
, Nabil Taib 1, Srete Nikolovski 2,*, Turki E. A. Alharbi 3, Toufik Rekioua 1, Aymen Flah 4 and Sherif S. M. Ghoneim 3
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper addresses an interesting topic of electric vehicles.
Although the paper overall consists of good scientific quality there are some inconsistencies in the text that need to be explained.
Below you will find the list of issues:
- The title says “electric vehicle” but inside the paper, the authors write about HEV vehicles. It is known that HEV can also run in pure electric mode, but authors need to use BEV if they mean Battery Electric Vehicle (full electric) or HEV.
- The same problem is that the model electric vehicle used in the paper is named “Microlino”. Again it is a fully electric vehicle and not a hybrid (HEV). Most of the HEVs are supported by combustion engine while accelerating. This fact should be addressed in the paper but it seems that the authors wanted to study BEV. I am also aware of the PHEV which can drive in fully electric mode on short trips, but please clarify. Why such a strange BEV was chosen in the paper?
- Although the paper uses an advanced numerical model to study the behaviour of electric vehicle it is unclear why the authors have not tested found parameters on the real vehicle. How much the theoretical results will vary with respect to the real electric vehicle?
Minor Issues:
- Please format the paper. There are many formatting issues.
- Table 2 is not centered.
- “In fact, the values provided in Table 1 do not consider [..]” - Authors probably mean Table 2.
- Different fonts are used in the paper.
- Some equations are not centered.
- Figures 42 and 43 should be corrected. I understand what the authors wanted to show, but it rather should be shown as numerical values (differences) rather than a zoomed-in plot.
Author Response
Response to reviewer 1
Comment 1: The title says “electric vehicle” but inside the paper, the authors write about HEV vehicles. It is known that HEV can also run in pure electric mode, but authors need to use BEV if they mean Battery Electric Vehicle (full electric) or HEV.
Answer 1: Thank you for your valuable comment. You are right, we should have used written BEV instead of HEV. In the revised manuscript version, the abbreviation “HEV” was replaced by BEV where it is necessary.
Comment 2: The same problem is that the model electric vehicle used in the paper is named “Microlino”. Again it is a fully electric vehicle and not a hybrid (HEV). Most of the HEVs are supported by combustion engine while accelerating. This fact should be addressed in the paper but it seems that the authors wanted to study BEV. I am also aware of the PHEV which can drive in fully electric mode on short trips, but please clarify. Why such a strange BEV was chosen in the paper?
Answer 2: Thank you for your valuable comment. In this work, the permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM) is responsible of vehicle traction. Hence, the PMSM should be able to sustain the maximum load torque applied on it. From table 2, the PMSM can handle a maximum torque of 111 N.m and the Microlino electric vehicle can develop a maximum torque of 110 Nm as it is highlighted in table 3. To summarize, Microlino electric vehicle was chosen in purpose because it develops a maximum torque that is in the range of nominal values that can be sustained by the traction machine (PMSM).
Comment 3: Although the paper uses an advanced numerical model to study the behaviour of electric vehicle it is unclear why the authors have not tested found parameters on the real vehicle. How much the theoretical results will vary with respect to the real electric vehicle?
Answer 3: Thank you for your valuable comment. In this paper, we performed robustness two robustness tests against change of environmental parameters and against BEV parameters variation. Unfortunatly, our research laboratory is not yet equipped with an electric vehicle prototype. This is why the effectiveness of the found theoritical results were not tested on a real electric vehicle model.
Minor Issues:
Comment 1: Please format the paper. There are many formatting issues.
Answer 1: Thank you for your valuable remark, the format of the revised version of the manuscript is improved.
Comment 2: Table 2 is not centered.
Answer 2: Thank you for your interesting comment, the position of table 2 is corrected.
Comment 3: “In fact, the values provided in Table 1 do not consider [..]” - Authors probably mean Table 2.
Answer 3: Thank you for your remark, you are right, we should have written table 2 instead of table 1. This mistake was corrected in the updated version of the manuscript.
Comment 4: Different fonts are used in the paper.
Answer 4: Thank you for your remark, the fonts of the revised version of the manuscript are adapted to journal template.
Comment 5: Some equations are not centered.
Answer 5: Thank you for your remark, all the equation of the revised version of the manuscript are centered.
Comment 6: Figures 42 and 43 should be corrected. I understand what the authors wanted to show, but it rather should be shown as numerical values (differences) rather than a zoomed-in plot.
Answer 6: Thank you for your remark, the quality of figure 42 and 43 was improved as shown below. Furthermore, numerical values were added while interpreting the two figures in page 29 line 1297-1302.
Figure 42. Effect of inverter time constant variation.
Figure 43. Effect of sensor time constant variation.
Text added between line 1297 and 1302 (page 29)
From the zooms of figure 42 and figure 43, one can notice that the variation of inverter and sensor time constants don’t affect significantly vehicle Performace. For instance a maximum speed deviation of 0.1 km/h was recorded when varying inverter time constant. Also, from figure 43 one can notice that sensor time constant variation resulted in a maximum speed deviation of 0.2 km/h. These results confirm the effectiveness of intelligent tuning and the robustness of the designed vehicle control system
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
1- First paragraph need references
2- Figure 24, make one curve with dashed line
3- Improve figures 36, 38 and 42 and 43 using bold and dashed lines
4- The results obtained show that using this battery model makes it
possible to correctly represent the temporary cases. It can then be
analysed in order to adjust various control devices.
5- What about developing a more effective energy management strategy (EMS), under different driving cycles.
6- Different driving cycles are chosen to check the improvement
in the efficiency of this proposed system.
7- Compare FOC with FLC mentioned in [1].
[1] 5. Sayed, K.; Kassem, A.; Saleeb, H.; Alghamdi, A.S.; Abo-Khalil, A.G. Energy-Saving of Battery Electric Vehicle Powertrain and Efficiency Improvement during Different Standard Driving Cycles. Sustainability 2020, 12, 10466.
Author Response
Response to reviewer 2
Comment 1: First paragraph need references.
Answer 1: Thank you for your valuable remark, I would like to inform you kindly that references are added to the first and last paragraphs of the introduction.
Comment 2: Figure 24, make one curve with dashed line.
Answer 2: Thank you for your comment, I would like to inform you kindly that figure 24 was modified as you have suggested. The updated version of figure 24 is shown below:
Figure 24: Best controller position for PSO and GA algorithm
Comment 3: Improve figures 36, 38 and 42 and 43 using bold and dashed lines
Answer 3: Thank you for your comment, I would like to inform you kindly that figure 36, 38, 42 were modified following your valuable comment. The updated version of these two aforementioned figures are shown below:
Figure 36: Effect of variation of surface friction coefficient on HEV speed response.
Figure 38: Wind variation effect of surface friction coefficient on HEV speed response.
Figure 42. Effect of inverter time constant variation.
Figure 43. Effect of sensor time constant variation
Comment 4: The results obtained show that using this battery model makes it possible to correctly represent the temporary cases. It can then be analyzed in order to adjust various control devices.
Answer 4: Thank you for your valuable comment. Indeed, the results obtained using the model presented in this paper makes it possible to analyze correctly represent the temporary cases. Furthermore, using the proposed model, we can study the effect of the variation of different system and environmental parameter on vehicle performance and robustness.
Comment 5: What about developing a more effective energy management strategy (EMS), under different driving cycles.
Answer 5: I would like to thank you for your interesting suggestion. In this paper we focused mainly on the advantage of integrating metaheuristic algorithms such PSO and GA into electric vehicle design and analysis. This is done by proposing efficient control scheme based on field oriented control which simplifies HEV performance analysis and metaheuristic algorithms integration. Adding a more effective energy management under different driving cycles will provide a significant added value to this work. Actually, we are in the middle of the process of building an effective energy management that considers power sources protection and life span as optimization goals.
Comment 6: Different driving cycles are chosen to check the improvement
in the efficiency of this proposed system.
Answer 6: Thank you for your valuable comment, indeed different driving cycles were used the check the improvement in the efficiency of this proposed system.
Comment 7: Compare FOC with FLC mentioned in [1].
Comment 7: Thank you for your comment. The obtained results in this paper were compared with the FLC proposed in [1] in the introduction section.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
Thank you for all your answers. I recommend accepting the paper after a small correction to Figure 3 which has strange underline below letters.
Please also include the explanation you provided about the chosen electric vehicle in the paper so your choice will be clear to the reader.
Author Response
Response to reviewer 1
All authors would like to thank you for providing valuable comments and remarks that contributed significantly in enhancing paper quality and format.
- Figure 3 has been corrected as you have suggested.
- Explanations we provided in the response to reviewer file about the chosen electric vehicle are added to the main manuscript to make things for the reader. Please note that this paragraph is added from line 250 to line 256 and it is highlighted with red.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
none
Author Response
Response to reviewer 2
All authors would like to thank you for providing valuable comments and remarks that contributed significantly to enhancing paper quality and format.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
