Incorporating driver preferences Into eco-driving assistance systems using optimal control

Recently there have been several proposals for ‘ecodriving assistance systems’, designed to save fuel or electrical power by encouraging behaviours such as gentle acceleration and coasting to a stop. These systems use optimal control to find driving behaviour that minimises vehicle energy losses. In this paper, we introduce a methodology to account for driver preferences on acceleration, braking, following distances and cornering speed in such eco-driving optimal control problems. This consists of an optimal control model of acceleration and braking behaviour containing several physically-meaningful parameters to describe driver preferences. If used in combination with a model of fuel or energy consumption, this can provide an adjustable trade-off between satisfying those preferences and minimising energy losses. We demonstrate that the model gives comparable performance to existing car-following and cornering models when predicting drivers’ speed in these situations by comparison with real-world driving data. Finally, we present an example highway braking scenario for an electric vehicle, illustrating a trade-off between satisfying driver preferences on vehicle speed and acceleration and reducing electrical energy usage by up to 43%