Cyber-physical energy-saving control for hybrid aircraft-towing tractor based on online swarm intelligent programming

This paper researches on a cyber-physical energy-saving control framework for a plug-in hybrid aircraft-towing tractor, in which, an online optimization methodology named the Online Swarm Intelligent Programming (OSIP) is proposed. The new methodology obtains real-time optimal control signals from the V2X network and the widely-used Charge Depleting/Charge Sustaining (CD/CS) strategy is upgraded to a more adaptive and intelligent level. The energy-flow of the hybrid aircraft-towing tractor with connectivity is firstly analysed and modelled for OSIP. The optimal control problem is then formulated as an online integer optimization and the OSIP algorithm based on Chaos-enhanced Accelerated Swarm Optimization (CAPSO) is developed to minimize the powertrain power loss in real-time. Finally, the advantages of the new energy management system are demonstrated and evaluated by hardware-in-the-loop testing. The results show that up to 17% fuel and 13% total energy loss can be saved via the proposed cyber-physical control.