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Hybridization with engine downsizing is a regular trend to achieve fuel economy benefits. However this leads to a development of new downsized engine which is very costly and time consuming process, also engine downsizing demands for expensive higher power electric system to meet performance targets. Various techniques like gear ratio optimization, reducing number of gears, battery size and control functionalities optimization have been evaluated for maximum fuel economy keeping system cost very low and improving vehicle performance. With optimized gear ratios and reduced number of gears for parallel hybrid, it is possible to operate the engine in the best efficiency zones without downsizing. Motor is selected based on power to weight ratio, gradient requirements, improved acceleration performance and top speed requirement of vehicle in EV mode.

Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) simulation is a technique used extensively in the development and testing of complex real-time embedded systems. Most of the HILs built around the world focus on specific part of a vehicle. This paper describes an in house HIL system developed for the complete hybrid car. In this HIL, the focus was to have HIL based on open hardware which is low cost and modular. It is customizable as per complex interdisciplinary vehicle requirements from Original Equipment Manufacturer that reduces dependency on suppliers and allows testing in an integrated vehicle environment. Code for operating HIL is developed in house. This HIL allows engineers to access ECU and plant model simultaneously and generate test report automatically. It consists of a vehicle plant model developed using MathWorks® Tool chain-MATLAB and Simulink. FPGA Plugin consist of software implementation of vehicle sensors in LabVIEW™ software from National Instruments (NI).