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Title: Optimal Speed Planning using Limited Preview for Connected Vehicles with Diesel Engines
Speed planning in a vehicle-following scenario can reduce vehicle fuel consumption even under limited traffic preview and in moderate penetration of connected autonomous vehicles (CAVs), but could also lead to colder exhaust temperature, and consequently, less efficient aftertreatment conversion. To investigate this potential trade-off, this paper presents a model predictive controller (MPC) to optimally plan in an energy-conscious way the optimal speed trajectory for a diesel car following a hypothetical lead vehicle that drives through the velocity trace of a federal test procedure. Using this energy-conscious optimal speed plan we investigate different horizons for three objective functions, including minimum acceleration, minimum fuel consumption and minimum power. Then, MPC results are compared to the trajectories obtained by dynamic programming with full knowledge of the drive cycle. As expected, longer previews lead to smoother velocity trajectories that reduce the fuel consumption by 11% when power is the objective function, if the preview is accurate. When the minimum fuel is set as the objective in the MPC, the controller coordinates to operate the engine at more efficient conditions, which increases the fuel saving to 25%. However, the extra fuel saving is shown to be achieved at the expense of high vehicle NOx emissions, since the engine operates at low speeds and high loads, where the output NOx emissions are high, when the aftertreatment catalyst is not hot enough. Finally, it is shown that the minimum power formulation leads to a better trade-off, where fuel economy can be increased without a large penalty on NOx emissions.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1646019
NSF-PAR ID:
10076119
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
14th International Symposium on Advanced Vehicle Control
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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