Minimum Fuel Control Strategy in Automated Car-Following Scenarios

Fuel consumption of traditional ground vehicles is significantly affected by how the vehicles are driven. This paper focuses on the servo-loop control design of a Pulse-and-Gliding (PnG) strategy to minimize fuel consumption in automated car following. A switching-based framework is proposed for real-time implementation. The corresponding controller was synthesized for ideal conditions and subsequently enhanced to compensate for practical factors such as powertrain dynamics, speed variations, and plant uncertainties. Simulations in both uniform and naturalistic traffic flows demonstrate that, compared with a linear quadratic (LQ)-based benchmark controller, the PnG controller improves fuel economy up to 20%. The significant fuel saving is achieved while maintaining precise range bounds so that the negative impact on safety/traffic flow is contained. The developed algorithm can potentially be embedded in adaptive cruise control systems to achieve fuel-saving function.