This content is not included in
your SAE MOBILUS subscription, or you are not logged in.
Fuel-Optimal Centralized Control of a Cooperating Car Swarm
Abstract:
How should a group of cars cooperate in order to save the most fuel? To provide insight into the driving behavioral objectives and control possibilities of a cooperating vehicle group sharing the goal of overall fuel savings, a method for collaborative dynamic eco-driving is developed by applying fuel-optimal centralized control to a swarm-inspired model of two-dimensional (2D) vehicle interactions. In this article, a continuous time, nonlinear system model which describes both lateral and longitudinal dynamics is used for purposes of control design, with the objective to minimize the amount of fuel used by the whole group of cars. This is accomplished using the semi-analytical optimal control algorithm of the conditional gradient method. The result of this synthesis is a type of collaborative dynamic eco-driving that offers insight into the way collaborating vehicles ought to interact on the road in order to save collective fuel. It is shown that centralized, collaborative control lowers total cost for the group compared to decentralized control. Several application scenarios are investigated as a demonstration of the proposed control method.