Environment-on-Board Predictive Braking Control Functions for Autonomous Driving During Sudden Changes in the Road Friction Coefficient on Sharp Curves.

In the context of automated and connected vehicle technology, this paper proposes an environment-on-board predictive braking control system, regulating the vehicle velocity to a desired value, in order to enhance path-following performance and vehicle stability when a vehicle is driven on a path where the road friction coefficient changes suddenly on a curve. In this study, we assume that the vehicle enters a wet road from a dry road and moves on to a dry road, and that the forward road surface friction condition can be estimated. In such driving situation, the objective of the vehicle dynamics control system is to improve path-following performance and vehicle stability of automated vehicle, even under abnormal road conditions. To achieve this objective, the predictive braking control is designed to track a safe velocity which is determined based on a simplified linear two-degree-of-freedom bicycle and a 2nd order look-ahead driver model. The effectiveness of this control system is verified using a nonlinear four-degree-of-freedom four-wheel model under various conditions, with varying road friction coefficients and curvatures. Finally, the effectiveness is evaluated using a full vehicle model of the IPG CarMaker, which is similar to an actual vehicle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]