Ultracap – Based New Electrical Drives For Off-Road Vehicles And Rovers

By means of results of experimental tests and of theoretical considerations the paper analyses the benefits given by supercaps used as auxiliary supplying devices in road and off-road electrical vehicles. The authors show how small sets of supercaps increase electrochemical batteries life and fuel distance, because they are capable of supporting transient current peaks and of regenerating electrical energy with higher efficiency than traditional batteries. Due to the characteristics of supercaps and electrical batteries, i.e. mainly to their inner resistances, to their energy/weight and energy/volume ratios the compound use of both components must be properly balanced to obtain concrete improvements of system performances. A sample designing procedure is suggested in the paper, based on the duty-cycles of vehicles. It evaluates the battery and supercap ratings required to obtain a compound set which covers the full power requested by the load without overloading the battery.