Combined regression and classification artificial neural networks for sideslip angle estimation and road condition identification.

This paper presents an Artificial Neural Network based algorithm to estimate the sideslip angle of a vehicle in different road conditions. The method is based on two parallel tasks: (a) estimation of the sideslip angle in three road conditions, namely dry, wet and icy, by means of three separate regression networks, and (b) identification of the road condition with a pattern recognition classifier allowing to select the correct estimation output among the three regression network outputs. The regression and classification networks are trained by means of datasets recorded during driving sessions conducted on a high-performance instrumented vehicle in the three road conditions and with different maneuvers and driving cycles. The algorithm has been deployed on the same vehicle to test the performance on the real application. The results are presented in terms of comparison between the estimated angle and its direct measurement obtained by a high precision optical sensor installed onboard. The resulting accuracy of the method is about 98.6%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]