0 Discussion

The obtained simulation and experimental results clearly demonstrate that charging-current regulation has a significant influence on the regenerative braking performance of light electric vehicles. The proposed regenerative braking strategy increased the recoverable electrical energy for both lithium-ion and lead-acid battery configurations under identical driving conditions.

One of the most important observations obtained from this study is that lithium-ion batteries consistently achieved higher regenerative braking performance than lead-acid batteries. This behaviour can primarily be attributed to the higher energy density, lower internal resistance, faster charging capability, and higher charge acceptance characteristics of lithium-ion battery technology. Consequently, a larger portion of the regenerated electrical energy could be stored during braking events.

Lead-acid batteries also benefited from the proposed regenerative braking strategy. However, their relatively high internal resistance and lower charging efficiency limited the amount of electrical energy that could be recovered. These results agree with the well-established electrochemical characteristics reported in previous battery studies.

Unlike many regenerative braking systems presented in the literature, the proposed approach intentionally avoids additional DC–DC converters, ultracapacitors, or sophisticated battery energy management systems. Instead, this work focuses on experimentally evaluating the influence of charging-current regulation by employing a manually adjustable resistance module. Consequently, the proposed architecture offers a considerably simpler and lower-cost experimental platform suitable for light electric vehicles.

Although the manually adjustable resistor inevitably introduces resistive power losses, its use should not be interpreted as a practical commercial solution. Instead, it represents a proof-of-concept implementation that enables systematic investigation of charging-current regulation under controlled experimental conditions. This experimental methodology provides valuable information regarding the relationship between charging current and regenerative braking efficiency before implementing electronically controlled charging-current regulation techniques.

Comparison between MATLAB simulations and real driving experiments indicates good agreement between theoretical predictions and experimental observations. The relatively small deviation demonstrates that the developed simulation model adequately represents the dynamic behaviour of the proposed regenerative braking system.

Overall, the proposed regenerative braking strategy demonstrates that charging-current regulation constitutes an important design parameter for improving regenerative braking performance in light electric vehicles while maintaining low hardware complexity and implementation cost.