Optimum low speed control of regenerative braking for electric vehicles

In this paper, a new approach for finding the optimal low speed regenerative braking cutoff point for Electric Vehicles (EVs) is proposed. This method is based on real-time sensing of motor current and disabling the regenerative braking at low speeds when the motor current falls below zero. It requires no hardware modifications to the existing architecture and can be implemented by modifying the brake controller algorithm. The proposed controller is tested and validated on an EV test bench simulation model and energy consumption is compared to a case where a fixed cutoff point is considered at low speeds. The results indicate improvement in extracting maximum energy during regenerative braking by applying this method.