Study on Regenerative Braking Systems in Electric Vehicles: Principles, Control, Power Electronics and Open Challenges

Author

Gireesh Kumar Chandaka, Naga Lakshmi Pavani Puvvada

Abstract

 Regenerative braking allows the traction motor of an electric vehicle (EV) to operate as a generator during deceleration, returning part of the vehicle's kinetic energy to the battery or another storage element instead of dissipating it as heat in friction brakes. This review examines ten studies that together span the basic motor-generator and inverter principle, vehicle-level energy recovery, hybrid-powertrain coordination, intelligent and adaptive braking control, bidirectional converters and power-electronic conditioning, and brake-by-wire system integration. Using a structured, qualitative and comparative methodology, the review extracts the contribution, method, evidence and stated limitations of each study, classifies them into five themes, and synthesises their quantitative findings. The evidence shows measurable gains: a real-world converted-vehicle case study reported 9.53 Wh/km (about 6.16%) lower energy consumption with regenerative braking, and an adaptive strategy based on naturalistic driver behaviour reported regeneration-efficiency improvements of 39.6%, 16% and 26% for three driver models. The evidence also shows that practical recovery is bounded by motor capability, battery charging limits, converter and transmission losses, vehicle speed and braking demand, so regenerative braking cannot replace friction braking in all conditions. The review identifies seven research gaps, chiefly real-time control that respects hardware and safety limits, the separate treatment of power electronics and braking control, limited real-world validation, and battery-health and driver-acceptance issues, and proposes directions for future work.

Keywords

Electric vehicle (EV), Regenerative Braking System (RBS), Traction Motor, Generator, Inverter, Bidirectional Converter, Battery, Energy Recovery, Braking Control, Neural Network, Literature review

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References

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