Simulation Analysis of Battery/Ultracapacitor Hybrid
Energy Storage System for Electric Vehicle
Saiyad Mohammad Juned S.
M.E. Electrical (Power Electronics)
Sarvajanik College of Engineering & Technology
Surat, India
juneds113@gmail.com
Abstract—Preservation of environment and energy
conservation has caused the advancement of Electric Vehicles
(EVs). Energy Storage System (ESS) plays an essential role in
superior and durable performance of EV. In peak power demand
condition battery will have to provide more power in a short
duration. For which battery is not entirely capable of. To meet
the peak power demand of the vehicle battery is combined with
Ultracapacitor (UC). UC has a high power density than the
battery. In this paper, battery/UC HESS is discussed.
Ultracapacitor voltage is kept higher than the battery voltage in
this Hybrid Energy Storage System (HESS). Battery will only
provide power when ultracapacitor voltage goes below battery
voltage. By using adequate power management, maximum
system performance along with less power consumption can lead
to extended battery life.
Keywords—Battery, DC/DC converters, electric vehicles,
energy storage, power electronics, ultracapacitor.
I. INTRODUCTION
Electric Vehicles (EVs) have been around since the 19th
century. They were sold reasonably well until 1920. With
continuous improvement in Internal Combustion Engine (ICE)
performance at lower cost, EVs petered out by 1933. EVs were
expensive and slower than its ICE counterparts.
Excessive increment in the number of Internal Combustion
Engine vehicles has caused a global concern about climate
change. Environmental protection, energy independence, and
energy cost have caused the revival of EVs. Upcoming
shortage of gasoline products, limitation in supply and their
cost have renewed people’s enthusiasm for EV. EVs can
adequately reduce air pollution in congested areas. It produces
no emission while using. It is anticipated that both EVs and
Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs) will be commercialized in
near future.
An objective of EV development is to make EV’s which
can last for long-term and must provide the range, comfort,
performance, and trouble-free operation currently available in
ICE vehicles. For the commercialization of EVs and HEVs,
key addressed are energy sources and electric propulsion.
Some of the advanced technologies employed to extend the
driving range and reduce the cost are, Li-Ion battery, Ni-MH
battery, Fuel Cell, Ultracapacitor to improve the EV energy
Prof. Dimple Bhanabhagvanwala
Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering Department,
Sarvajanik College of Engineering & Technology
Surat, India
dimple.bhana@scet.ac.in
source, advanced PM brushless motor and IM drives to
improve electric propulsion system [1].
The power of a battery is the energy delivered per unit time.
An essential part is to develop high performance, low cost,
reliable and safe batteries. In EV, battery stores extensive
amount of energy and contains high energy and power density.
EV requires high energy density battery, whereas HEVs
requires high power density battery [2]. To deliver high power,
batteries are designed to be discharged at heavy current during
short period [3]. High power density batteries are priced much
higher than their lower power density counterparts. By
increasing the size of the battery above issue can be resolved
but another issue of thermal management arises [4]. Life of the
battery relies on balancing of the cell in the battery system.
Unbalancing of the cell will occur when battery is used to do
high rate charge and discharge. To solve this issue, battery can
be used with Ultracapacitor in Hybrid Energy Storage type
system. There are few Hybrid Energy Storage System (HESS)
proposed in [5-9]. By combining battery and UC better overall
performance can be achieved. Battery/UC HESS will be
presented and verified in detail in this paper.
This paper is organized as follows. Section-II gives brief
knowledge about different HESS topologies. Section-III
presents operating modes of battery/UC HESS. Further verified
with MATLAB/Simulink simulation results in Section-IV
followed by conclusion in Section-V.
II. DIFFERENT HESS TOPOLOGIES
Both batteries and UCs fall under the electrochemical
devices. However, both of them operates on different
principles. Batteries have high energy density and low power
density, whereas UC has low energy density and high power
density. Life of the UC is around one million cycles.
Here, some of the popularly used HESS topologies have
been reviewed.
A. Basic Passive parallel configuration
It is the simplest method of combining battery and UC.
There is no power electronic converter. Both of the sources are
paralleled so VBATT=VUC=VDC. Fig. 1 illustrates the basic
passive parallel configuration. As there is no converter,
implementation and control become easy. However, UC stored
energy cannot be utilized effectively.
 E. Multiple converter Configuration
Two converters cascaded in previous configuration are
paralleled in this HESS. Fig. 5 shows multiple converter
configuration. Output of both converters is equal to VDC.
VBATT and VUC can be maintained lower than VDC

Fig. 1. Basic Passive parallel configuration

B. UC/Battery configuration

Fig. 5. Multiple converter configuration.

F. Multiple input converter configuration

In cascaded and multiple converter configuration two
Fig. 2. UC/Battery configuration. converter are required which results in increasing the cost. For
The UC/Battery HESS is the most studied and researched which multiple input converter topology is proposed in [11,
HESS [10]. A bidirectional DC/DC converter is used to 12]. Fig. 6 shows a multiple input converter configuration.
interface the UC. A wide range of UC voltage is available. Fig.
2 shows the UC/Battery configuration. Larger size of
bidirectional converter is needed in order to handle the power
of UC. As battery is directly connected to DC link VBATT=VDC.
Hence battery voltage cannot be changed.

C. Battery/UC Configuration
By interchanging the position of battery and UC in the
previous topology we get configuration as shown in Fig. 3.
Control strategy applied to this HESS allows VDC to vary
within range to effectively use UC energy.

Fig. 6. Multiple input converter configuration.

III. OPERATING MODES OF BATTERY/UC HESS

Any of the topologies discussed in Section-II depends on
the voltage strategy selected. VBATT, VUC, and VDC refer to
Fig. 3. Battery/UC configuration.
battery voltage, ultracapacitor voltage and DC-link voltage
respectively. In this topology voltage strategies acquired is
D. Cascaded Configuration VBATT < VUC = VDC. In electric vehicle application operation of
HESS are separated in four modes. Which are low constant
To make even better use of UC energy another speed, acceleration, high constant speed and deceleration
bidirectional DC/DC converter can be added between UC and (regenerative braking) mode.
DC link as shown in Fig. 4.
A. Mode-1: Low constant speed operation
Depending on the relationship between the power of
DC/DC converter PCONV and power demand PDMD, constant
speed operation has been separated in low and high constant
speed operation mode. Energy flow of low constant speed
operation is shown in Fig. 7. If PDMD ≤ PCONV, it is said to be in
low constant speed mode. Low constant speed mode is ideal, in
practical vehicle driving, PDMD is always changing. In this
mode, VBATT is smaller than VUC. In constant speed mode, UC
Fig. 4. Cascaded configuration
Fig. 4. Cascaded configuration.
 C. Mode-3: High constant speed operation

Fig. 7. Energy flow of low constant speed operation.

neither provide nor absorb power from the inverter. Power
diode is reverse biased, meaning battery is not providing any Fig. 10. Energy flow of high constant speed operation.
energy directly to inverter.
In this mode PDMD > PCONV, VUC cannot be maintained
B. Mode-2: Acceleration higher than VBATT. At that time power diode is forward biased,
Acceleration has two phases. At the beginning of this mode and battery will provide energy directly to the motor inverter.
VUC > VBATT, hence PCONV < PDMD. VUC will be decreasing. DC/DC converter will be OFF in this mode. Fig. 10 shows the
Energies from both DC/DC converter and UC are being used energy flow of high constant speed operating mode.
for vehicle acceleration. Fig. 8 shows the energy flow of
acceleration mode phase-I.
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
As the decrement of VUC, it will drop to the level of VBATT. Table I Simulation parameters
When VUC = VBATT, battery and UC become paralleled through
diode. System enters the Mode-3 i.e. High constant speed Electric Motor DPM 57BLS94
operation. In high constant speed operation if PDMD < PCONV Motor Power 400 W
difference between them is used to charge UC. Fig. 9 shows
energy flow of acceleration mode phase-II. UC 0.1 F

VBATT 24V

VCONV 36V
Converter operating
20kHZ
frequency

Fig. 8. Energy flow of acceleration mode phase-I.

Fig. 11. MATLAB/Simulink model of HESS

Simulation of Battery/UC HESS has been carried out in

MATLAB/Simulink for 5 seconds. In which it runs in mode-1
for 0-1s. From 1 to 1.5s mode-2. 1.5-5s it operates in mode-3.
MATLAB/Simulink model of the HESS is shown in Fig. 11
and simulation parameters are given in Table I.
As discussed in Section-III, in mode-1 PDMD is less than
PCONV, so UC will not provide any power it will take some
Fig. 9. Energy flow of acceleration mode phase-II.
power from converter for some time to fully charge. Motor
runs at low speed. After fully charging UC will not provide any
current and voltage of UC will stay at 36V. Waveform of PDMD
& PCONV, VUC & VBATT, IUC, %SOC, and Speed are shown in
Fig. 12.
In mode-2, as PDMD becomes less than PCONV UC will
provide additional power resulting in its discharge which can
 500
PDMD(W)
450 120
PCONV(W)
PDMD(W)
400
100 PCONV(W)
350

300 80
W
250
60
200

W
150 40

100
20
50
0
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Time
-20
1 1.05 1.1 1.15 1.2 1.25 1.3 1.35 1.4 1.45 1.5
Time
(a)
(a)
36
VUC(V)
34 VBATT(V) 36
VUC(V)
32
34 VBATT(V)
30

28 32

26
V

30
24

V
22 28

20
26
18
24
16
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Time
22
1 1.05 1.1 1.15 1.2 1.25 1.3 1.35 1.4 1.45 1.5
Time
(b)
(b)
15
IUC(A)
15
10
IUC(A)

10
5

5
Current(A)

Current(A)
0
-5

-5
-10

-10
-15

-15
-20
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Time
-20
1 1.05 1.1 1.15 1.2 1.25 1.3 1.35 1.4 1.45 1.5
Time
(c)
(c)
100
%SOC
90 100
%SOC
80
95
70
90
60
%SOC

50 85
%SOC

40 80
30
75
20
70
10

0 65
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Time
60
1 1.05 1.1 1.15 1.2 1.25 1.3 1.35 1.4 1.45 1.5
Time
(d)
(d)
2500
Speed(rpm)
3000
2000 Speed(rpm)

2500
1500
Speed(rpm)

2000
1000
Speed(rpm)

1500
500

1000
0

500
-500
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Time
0
1 1.05 1.1 1.15 1.2 1.25 1.3 1.35 1.4 1.45 1.5
Time
(e)
(e)
Fig. 12. Waveform of Mode-1(a) PCONV & PDMD (b) VUC & VBATT (c) IUC
(d) %SOC (e) Speed 15
Id(A)

be observed from the waveform in Fig. 13. As UC will 10

discharge, VUC will become less than VBATT at that time power 5
Current(A)

diode will be forward biased and battery will provide all the
0
required power.
-5

-10
1 1.05 1.1 1.15 1.2 1.25 1.3 1.35 1.4 1.45 1.5
Time

(f)
Fig. 13. Waveform of Mode-2(a) PCONV & PDMD (b) VUC & VBATT (c) IUC
(d) %SOC (e) Speed (f) Id
 In mode-3, VUC < VBATT and PDMD becomes more than V. CONCLUSION
PCONV so power diode will be forward biased. In this mode,
In this paper Battery/UC HESS has been studied and
DC/DC converter will be turned OFF. The observed waveform
simulated in MATLAB/Simulink. This type of HESS is
of mode-3 is shown in Fig. 14.
capable of using the entire range of UC. For interfacing with
100
PDMD(W)
UC large size DC/DC converter is not required in this
90
80
PCONV(W) configuration. Frequent load occurring on battery due to
70 change in the speed of vehicle satisfied by UC. Resulting in
60
50 the longer lifespan of the battery. UC will only provide power
W

40
30
when a sudden or abrupt change occurs. Once UC is
20 discharged battery will provide all the required power. Once
10
0
the UC is discharged it will charge when there is a power
-10
1.5 2 2.5 3
Time
3.5 4 4.5 5 difference between converter power and power demand.
Sizing of the DC/DC converter and the selection of UC should
(a) be considered carefully to reduce the cost of the overall
35
system. Future work related to this paper will focus on
VUC(V)

30
VBATT(V) obtaining the proper simulation results of Deceleration
25
(regenerative braking) mode.
20
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Id(A)

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-10
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(f)
Fig. 14. Waveform of Mode-2(a) PCONV & PDMD (b) VUC & VBATT (c) IUC
(d) %SOC (e) Speed (f) Id