Velocity Trajectory Planning for Energy Savings of an Intelligent 4WD Electric Vehicle Using Model Predictive Control

To reduce the fuel consumption of an intelligent four-wheel-drive (4WD) electric vehicle (EV), this paper presents a new method of speed trajectory planning. The proposed method can realize a fast real-time optimization of vehicle speed, aiming to achieve the minimum motor energy output according to the fuel consumption directly. In addition, the optimization method maintains the cruising speed within the deviation required to achieve a good control effect. First, the road slope information is considered, and then, a 4WD EV longitudinal dynamic prediction model and a fuel consumption function are established. Next, the state and control variables are chosen to establish the cost function; in this manner, the MPC optimization problem in each prediction horizon is transformed into quadratic form. Finally, the fast solving tool called GRAMPC is used to solve the MPC problem. The calculation results show that the average fuel consumption is reduced compared with that of normal driving, and the calculation time is significantly shortened, even with a large number of sample times.