Novel Ergonomic Regenerative Braking System for an Electric Motorcycle

Despite several advances in regenerative braking (RB) strategies for electric vehicle applications, the developments associated to the case of an electric motorcycle remain very limited. Indeed, since the rear wheel load of an electric motorcycle is light during braking, the RB torque contribution is usually limited accordingly to avoid a rear wheel lockup. The fine-tune modulation of the RB torque by the driver is thereby constrained as well. As a contribution, this paper proposes an ergonomic novel strategy to pilot the RB torque. Hence, through the combined use of the twist grip, the "regen shift pedal" and the left-hand "regenerative brake lever," it emulates the engine braking effect of a gasoline motorcycle. Indeed, while braking, a predefined amount of RB torque, proportional to the vehicle speed, can be increased by "downshifting" the regen shift pedal and the resulting RB torque can be modulated through both the twist grip and the RB lever. More specifically, the purpose of the RB lever is to emulate the quick release effect of the clutch on the engine braking effect. Through simulations with identified parameters, the behavior of the strategy is verified while a more comprehensive verification will be done through road test in future work.