Study on the Road Friction Database for Automated Driving: Fundamental Consideration of the Measuring Device for the Road Friction Database

This study deals with the possibility of construction of a database on the braking friction coefficient for actual roads from the viewpoint of traffic safety, especially for automated driving, such as level 4 or higher. At these levels of automated driving, the controller needs to control the vehicle. However, the road surface condition, especially the road friction coefficient on wet roads and snowy or icy roads, changes greatly, and in some cases, changes by almost one order. Therefore, it is necessary for the controller to constantly collect environment information, such as the road friction coefficients, and prepare for emergencies, such as obstacle avoidance. However, at present, the measurement of the road friction coefficients is not systemically performed, and a method for accurately measuring has not been established. In order to improve this situation, this study examines a method for continuous measurement of the road friction characteristics, such as the μ-s characteristics. It is shown that the μ-s characteristics are continuously measured using the MF generally used in tire engineering, and the friction characteristics identified from the results are sufficiently satisfactory.