Model Building and Experimental Validation for Regeneration of Perpendicular Vibration by In-Wheel Motor

Traditional hydraulic dampers dissipate the energy of perpendicular vibration as heat to improve ride comfort. Therefore, numerous studies have been conducted to recover the energy as electricity instead of wasting it. Most of this studies involve converting perpendicular vibration energy into rotational kinetic energy, which is regenerated as electric power using motors. However, this study proposes a novel idea of regenerating perpendicular vibration energy in electric vehicles (EVs) using drive motors mounted inside wheels. This approach aims to focus on the perpendicular forces generated by the driving force owing to the suspension geometry and recover vibration energy that is potentially converted into rotational energy owing to the structure. In this study, a new model is proposed that considers the torque disturbance owing to the vibration. Through simulations and experiments, the drive motors were confirmed to recover the vibration energy, and a novel loss separation method was proposed. To analyze the effectiveness, a suspension force regeneration control was applied. Analysis of the experimental results demonstrated that the suspension force can be regenerated as electric power by drive motors.