Predictive Deceleration Control

Sammanfattning

For vehicles equipped with electric motors there exist a possibility to recuperate energy during deceleration. This master’s thesis presents a driver support function, a Predictive Deceleration Control (PDC), that warns the driver when to release the accelerator pedal. If the driver follows the instructions from the function the vehicle will decelerate to an appropriate speed at the upcoming road feature, such as a roundabout. The function should both improve energy consumption and enhance driver comfort. This master’s thesis focused on how such a function can be implemented and a proof of concept was designed in a Matlab/Simulink environment. Within the scope of the proof of concept the function should warn the driver to release the accelerator pedal ahead of roundabouts, intersections, speed limit signs and stop signs. With the help of map information and the vehicle most probable path, the distance to the road features could be determined and the predicted braking distance to these road features could be calculated by the function. A feedforward controller was used to control the deceleration phase and was based on a longitudinal vehicle model. The PDC was tested both in a Lynk & Co 01 and CEVT’s dynamic simulator and the results proved that the function can be implemented in for example a Lynk & Co 01 without any additional hardware needed. However, it requires software that can provide the function with map information. During the tests performed during the master’s thesis, map information was acquired with a frequency of 1 Hz, but for the function to become more robust a higher update frequency is required.