Energy-Efficient Driving in Connected Corridors via Minimum Principle Control: Vehicle-in-the-Loop Experimental Verification in Mixed Fleets

TL;DR

This paper presents a control strategy for connected automated vehicles that optimizes energy efficiency in traffic corridors using first principles and experimental vehicle-in-the-loop testing, achieving significant fuel savings.

Contribution

It introduces a novel control approach combining Pontryagin's Minimum Principle with MPC for eco-driving in mixed traffic, validated through real-time VIL experiments.

Findings

Up to 36% fuel savings compared to human drivers.

Connectivity improves fuel economy by up to 26%.

Passive energy benefits for human drivers when following connected CAVs.

Abstract

Connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) can plan and actuate control that explicitly considers performance, system safety, and actuation constraints in a manner more efficient than their human-driven counterparts. In particular, eco-driving is enabled through connected exchange of information from signalized corridors that share their upcoming signal phase and timing (SPaT). This is accomplished in the proposed control approach, which follows first principles to plan a free-flow acceleration-optimal trajectory through green traffic light intervals by Pontryagin's Minimum Principle in a feedback manner. Urban conditions are then imposed from exogeneous traffic comprised of a mixture of human-driven vehicles (HVs) - as well as other CAVs. As such, safe disturbance compensation is achieved by implementing a model predictive controller (MPC) to anticipate and avoid collisions by issuing braking commands as necessary. The control strategy is experimentally vetted through vehicle-in-the-loop (VIL) of a prototype CAV that is embedded into a virtual traffic corridor realized through microsimulation. Up to 36% fuel savings are measured with the proposed control approach over a human-modelled driver, and it was found connectivity in the automation approach improved fuel economy by up to 26% over automation without. Additionally, the passive energy benefits realizable for human drivers when driving behind downstream CAVs are measured, showing up to 22% fuel savings in a HV when driving behind a small penetration of connectivity-enabled automated vehicles.