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Modeling and Analysis of the Technical Performance of DC-Motor Electric Bicycle Drives Based on

Bicycle Road Test Data


Abstract- Electric motor powered bicycles have been making their way into the U.S. market for
about two decades. Custom- designed electric bicycles allow common issues such as high cost and
weight to be overcome. To this aim, customized modeling tools are required. The paper discusses the
modeling of a direct-drive dc-motor electric bicycle drive system for technical performance evaluation,
where the operating cycle profiles used are based on actual road tests. It is explained how the
measurement data can be processed and coupled with the "usual" model of a direct-drive dc-drive
system, thereby extending common modeling approaches. Then, the different riding profiles are
analyzed with the developed tool. The results both illustrate the ability of such low-cost drives to serve
for commuting purposes with moderate driving styles and their limits to support rather sporty rides.
Index Terms- Power-assisted bicycle, direct-drive, efficiency, modeling, performance evaluation.

I. INTRODUCTION
Electric motor powered bicycles have been making their way into the U.S. market for about two
decades. Such electric bicycles can be used for a large variety of purposes, including serving as a vehicle
for police or law enforcers, a guide bike during races, and for leisurely rides and commuting (e.g. [1]-[8]).
When designing electric bicycles (including their electric drive systems) and trying to overcome common
issues such as high bicycle cost and weight, it is important that the drive be most efficient over a given
operating cycle; this leads to custom-designed electric bicycles such as "city bicycles," "hill bicycles,"
"distance bicycles," and "speedy bicycles." In this paper, a model of an electric bicycle drive is presented
that can be used to evaluate the technical performance of a given drive system both instantaneously
and over a whole operating cycle. A very unique characteristic of the model is that the operating cycle
profiles used as input are based on actual road tests. Special emphasis is based on the coupling
techniques of these experimental data to the different modules of the drive model. For example, both
the command and the load torque are required in the model, but only one measured value per time
step is available. Furthermore, the speed has been measured, which, in the "conventional" model, is a
function of the net torque available at the shaft. As far as the authors know, this is the first time that
such an approach on analysis and design of electric bicycle drives is reported on in the literature. The
model allows investigation of:
1) Instantaneous drive parameters (e.g. currents, voltages, torques, battery loading, efficiencies).
2) Overall technical performance of the drive over a given driving cycle (e.g. efficiency, energy
consumption).
3) Influence of the parameters of the different drive com-ponents on the technical performance
and other output parameters.
First, in the style of a concise review, the different elements of the conventional model are
presented (Section II). Then, the drive simulation technique is discussed. This includes the test vehicle
and data recording, as well as the data processing and model extension to analyze the technical
performance of a drive using such measured riding profiles (Section III). Here, special emphasis is put on
the different ways of using the measurement data as input into the model. In the next section, following
a short overview of the four measured riding profiles, the performances of different dc-motor drives is
analyzed using the presented model (Section IV). Both the advantages and limits of the drives as well as
of the modeling approach are shown. The findings are summarized and prospects of future work are
given at the end (Section V).
II. MODELSTRUCTURE ANDIMPLEMENTATION
A. Objectives
The model is designed for the investigation of both the instantaneous and the overall
performance of direct-drive dc-motor electric bicycle drive systems under different riding conditions. To
this aim, it allows:
1) Investigation of various instantaneous drive parameters, such as motor current, voltage,
torque, remaining battery energy, and system efficiency.
2) Overall performance evaluation of the drive over a given driving cycle, such as system efficiency
and total power consumption.
3) Investigation of the influence of controller, battery, and motor parameters on the different
drive parameters. For example, battery internal resistance, motor inductance and resistance. Thereby,
modifications to better meet the demands of custom-designed electric bicycles can be identified and
verified.
Here, only direct-drive systems with brushed dc-motors of fully-powered electric bicycles are
considered. However, the model can be extended at a later stage to include brushless dc motors and/or
the additional control of the output power due to the required human-to-motor power ratio of
pedelec-type electric bicycles. With pedelec-type electric bicycles, only a certain pre-determined,
speed-dependent fraction of the bicycle propulsion power is delivered by the drive.
B. Structure
The overall model is organized in submodels that are implemented as individual submodules. It
consists of the four today well-known main components of such drive systems (Sections II-C through II-
E):
1) Electric motor.
2) Controller, itself consisting of three submodules:
a) Transformation of the user demand into the corre-sponding duty cycle.
b) Control of the switching based on the duty cycle.
c) A capacitor to provide a stiff voltage at the switch throw terminal.
3) Battery.
4) Electromechanical system that relates net torque and acceleration, using a simplified single-
wheel representation.
and of a series of technical performance modules (Section II-F). A sketch of the electric
components, 1) to 3), and their main interactions is shown in Fig. 1, the equivalent circuit in Fig. 2.
Fig. 1. Overview of the three electric modules and their main interactions.
Fig. 2. Equivalent circuit of the system.
The model is implemented using the commercially available software package MATLAB Simulink.
All parameters are defined globally.
C. Motor model including mechanical equation
The motor including the mechanical equation are modeled in the today well established way
consisting of:
1) The electrical equivalent circuit ((1) - (3)) with the armature voltage, current, resistance, and
induc-tance Va,Ia,Ra, and La, the back-EMF voltage given bythe product of back-EMF constant kvand
rotor speed , the electrical torque Te and torque constantke.
and
2) The mechanical equivalent circuit (4):

D. Controller model
The controller controls the power flow from the battery source to the motor. The controller
model module consists of three sub-modules (Fig. 4):
1) Transformation of the user demand into the switch control (Fig. 4(a)):
The controller controls the switching of the switch that connects the motor terminals either to the
battery voltage Vbatt or to zero voltage. The torque command given by the riderTcmd is transformed
into the corresponding current and compared to the armature current. The error is controlled to
become zero with a Proportional Integral (PI) PWM controller. The output Dof the controller takes on
the values 0 or 1.
2) Control of the switch (Fig. 4(b)):
The instantaneous throw voltage Vcmd and current Icmd that result from the torque command
Tcmd and the actual point of operation of the motor are obtained from the output of the controllerD,
the armature voltage Va, and the armature current Ia. The command voltage Vcmd is used to control
the motor (Fig. 3), whereas the current Icmd is required to calculate the voltage across the voltage
stiffening capacitor.
3) A capacitor to provide a stiff voltage at the switch throw terminal (Fig. 4(c)):
The capacitor voltageVc is obtained by integration of the capacitor current which is the difference
between the battery and throw currents Ibatt and Icmd.
E. Battery model
The battery model block comprises the battery voltage Vbatt and the battery internal resistance
Rb. Temperature and load dependence are not considered. The battery voltage interacts with the
capacitor voltage, and the battery current is obtained from the voltage drop across the battery internal
resistance (Fig. 5)

F. Technical performance modules
The following parameters are investigated with the technical performance modules:
1) Instantaneous electrical input powerPin.
2) Instantaneous mechanical output powerPmech.
3) Input energy (battery energy output)Win (accumulated since the beginning of the driving
cycle).
4) Battery capacity Wbatt0.
5) Battery remaining energy Wbatt(t).
6) Instantaneous drive efficiency .
7) Average drive efficiency over driving cycle ave.
The equations implementing these seven aspects are simple and well-established. Therefore, not
all technical performance modules are shown in Fig. 6.

For the realization of the technical performance blocks, several if-execution blocks are used. This
is required to prevent the occurrence of undefined numbers caused by divisions by zero. For example, at
the beginning of a simulation (t=0), unless initialized otherwise, both the electrical input power Pin and
the mechanical output power Pmech are zero, and calculation of the efficiency would result in an
undefined number. Using the if-execution block, this is avoided as

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