Developing a compressor, fan, and active grille shutter control strategy for air conditioner duty cycles to improve the overall vehicle power consumption.

Fuel consumption optimization is a critical field of research within the automotive industry to meet consumer expectations and regulatory requirements. A reduction in fuel consumption can be achieved by reducing the energy consumed by the vehicle. Several subsystems contribute to the overall energy consumption of the vehicle, including the air conditioning (A/C) system. The loads within the A/C system are mainly contributed by the compressor, condenser fan, and underhood aerodynamic drag, which are the components targeted for overall vehicle energy use reduction in this research. It is essential to reduce the energy use of these components, as it will reduce the overall vehicle energy use and improve the vehicle’s fuel economy. There is ongoing competition within the automotive industry for manufacturers to achieve the best possible fuel economy. This research explores a new avenue for A/C system control by considering the conden-ser fan power and the power consumption due to vehicle drag (regulated by the condenser fan and active grille shutters (AGS)) to reduce the energy consumption of the A/C system and improving the overall vehicle fuel economy. The control approach used in this project is model predictive control (MPC), which uses a model of the vehicle A/C system to make predictions about the behaviour of the real system. The industrial partner provided a model of the A/C system that is further improved and validated for this project. The controller is designed in Simulink, where the compressor clutch signal, condenser fan speed, and AGS open fraction are considered as inputs. The controller is then connected to GT-Suite (which contains the actual vehicle plant model) to form a software-in-the-loop (SiL) simulation environment, where the controller sends actuator inputs to GT-Suite, and the vehicle response is sent back to the controller in Simulink.