Abstract: Given the problems in developing electric vehicles, such as, real-time simulation of control strategy, modeling of nonlinear components, rapid control prototyping, it is proposed that a flexible real time simulation platform be constructed using PC cluster and hardware-in-the-loop technology. In the case study of a fuel cell vehicle, the state space modeling method is adopted to realize the dynamic simulation of induction motor and main DC/DC converter including their controllers; moreover, it is proposed to put the battery into the simulation loop for the first time, due to its poor accuracy. As a result, a simulation environment, which resembles the actual power train of electric vehicle, is setup. Finally, road tests are implemented to validate this real time platform, and the application of battery-in-the- loop simulation is also explained.

Key words: Distributed PC cluster, Electric vehicle, Flexible simulation platform, Hardware-in-the-loop