A Model Predictive Approach for a Fuel Efficient Cruise Control System

Zusammenfassung

Many present-day’s vehicles are equipped with adaptive cruise control systems (ACC). The purpose of these systems is to keep a desired vehicle speed or distance towards a preceding object vehicle, if existing. Yet, present ACC systems do not consider the vehicle’s fuel consumption in a satisfactory way. For example, while platooning, a lot of fuel is wasted by vehicle drivers who imitate their respective preceding vehicles’ speed profiles. In contrast, copying these speed variations is not necessary, as it does not decrease the overall travel time but increases the fuel rate. Instead, allowing a dynamic distance towards an object vehicle decreases the subject vehicle’s fuel consumption because the engine can be run in fuel efficient operating points for a longer length of time.