Minimizing vehicle fuel consumption on hilly roads based on dynamic programming

Abstract

Vehicle fuel consumption is greatly influenced by roadway gradients and the driver’s driving behavior. To explore the great energy-saving potential of optimizing driver behavior on hilly roads, a novel eco-driving algorithm is defined and formulated based on dynamic programming. The new dynamic programming–based eco-driving algorithm generates the optimal velocity trajectory using information on the roadway gradients, vehicle longitudinal dynamics, and vehicle transient fuel consumption characteristics. A newer and accurater instantaneous fuel consumption model is developed and used in the objective function to ensure fuel economy driving. To verify the performance of the proposed dynamic programming–based eco-driving algorithm, co-simulations of MATLAB/Simulink and CarSim on typical roads and a real road are conducted. A typical cruise control algorithm that consists of two proportional–integral controllers is used as a comparison group. The simulation results show that approximately 6.89%–24.78% of fuel can be saved using the dynamic programming–based eco-driving algorithm compared with using the cruise control algorithm.