A fuel economy optimization system with applications in vehicles with human drivers and autonomous vehicles

Keywords: Vehicle fuel economy Eco-driving Human–machine interface Autonomous vehicle Driving simulator analysis a b s t r a c t Motor vehicle powered by regular gasoline is one of major sources of pollutants for local and global environment. The current study developed and validated a new fuel-economy optimization system (FEOS), which receives input from vehicle variables and environment variables (e.g., headway spacing) as input, mathematically computes the optimal acceler-ation/deceleration value with Lagrange multipliers method, and sends the optimal values to drivers via a human-machine interface (HMI) or automatic control systems of autonomous vehicles. FEOS can be used in both free-flow and car-following traffic conditions. An experimental study was conducted to evaluate FEOS. It was found that without sacrificing driver safety, drivers with the aid of FEOS consumed significant less fuel than those without FEOS in all acceleration conditions (22–31% overall gas saving) and the majority of deceleration conditions (12–26% overall gas saving). Compared to relative expensive vehicle engineering system design and improvement, FEOS provides a feasible way to minimize fuel consumptions considering human factors. Applications of the optimal model in the design of both HMI for vehicles with human drivers and autonomous vehicles were discussed. A number of alternatives have been put forward to improve fuel economy of motor vehicles and recently driving behaviors and energy efficient technologies have been seen to offer considerable potential for reducing fuel consumption. Additional while the exploitation of energy efficient technologies may take time to implement and be costly in terms of continuously having to satisfy consumer demands for safety, comfort, space and adequate acceleration and performance encouraging changes in driving behavior can be accomplished relatively quickly. One method to help drivers form appropriate driving behaviors is via the in-vehicle human–machine interface (HMI). For example, van der Voort et al. (2001) develop a fuel-efficiency support tool to present visual advice on optimal gear shifting to maximize fuel economy. Appropriate vehicle pedal operations, however, may contribute more than manual shifting operations to fuel economy (Brundell-Freij and Ericsson, 2005). Further pedal operations are applied for both manual-transmission and automatic-transmission vehicles with human drivers as well as autonomous vehicles, while gear shifting operations are only used for manual-transmission ones. Fuel consumption models have been developed to quantify the relationship between fuel consumption and vehicle characteristics , traffic or road conditions but these, in general, are only able to provide approximate fuel consumption estimates. As the model accuracy …