Optimal battery thermal management for electric vehicles with battery degradation minimization

Abstract: The control of a battery thermal management system (BTMS) is essential for the thermal safety, energy efficiency, and durability of electric vehicles (EVs) in hot weather. To address the battery cooling optimization problem, this paper utilizes dynamic programming (DP) to develop an online rule-based control strategy. Firstly, an electrical-thermal-aging model of the $\rm LiFePO_4$ battery pack is established. A control-oriented onboard BTMS model is proposed and verified under different speed profiles and temperatures. Then in the DP framework, a cost function consisting of battery aging cost and cooling-induced electricity cost is minimized to obtain the optimal compressor power. By exacting three rules "fast cooling, slow cooling, and temperature-maintaining" from the DP result, a near-optimal rule-based cooling strategy, which uses as much regenerative energy as possible to cool the battery pack, is proposed for online execution. Simulation results show that the proposed online strategy can dramatically improve the driving economy and reduce battery degradation under diverse operation conditions, achieving less than a 3% difference in battery loss compared to the offline DP. Recommendations regarding battery cooling under different real-world cases are finally provided.