Self-sustaining Strategy for a Hybrid Electric Bike

Electrically Power Assisted Cycles (EPACs) have been gaining attention as an efficient and clean means of transportation. In this work, the concept of full hybrid bike presented in previous research is further developed by introducing a charge sustaining strategy. The main idea is to consider the load-dependent efficiency of the cyclist and let the electric motor assist the cyclist in low efficiency regions while letting the cyclist recharge the battery in high efficiency regions. To this end a State-of-Charge (SoC) controller is designed. Its tuning is analyzed and compared in terms of efficiency and feeling against the acausal strategy available in the literature.