Literature review and fundamental approaches for vehicle and tire state estimation*

ABSTRACT

Most modern day automotive chassis control systems employ a feedback control structure. Therefore, real-time estimates of the vehicle dynamic states and tire-road contact parameters are invaluable for enhancing the performance of vehicle control systems, such as anti-lock brake system (ABS) and electronic stability program (ESP). Today's production vehicles are equipped with onboard sensors (e.g. a 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope, steering wheel angle sensor, and wheel speed sensors), which when used in conjunction with certain model-based or kinematics-based observers can be used to identify relevant tire and vehicle states for optimal control of comfort, stability and handling. Vehicle state estimation is becoming ever more relevant with the increased sophistication of chassis control systems. This paper presents a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art in the field of vehicle and tire state estimation. It is expected to serve as a resource for researchers interested in developing vehicle state estimation algorithms for usage in advanced vehicle control and safety systems.     

基于非完备贝叶斯网络的车型识别方法

针对BP神经网络等车型识别算法不能很好地适应我国车型复杂状况，分析了贝叶斯网络（IDS-BN）算法中完备数据集的问题，提出了基于非完备数据集的贝叶斯网络车型识别方法和车型识别系统结构模块，基于该模块拟定了车型特征变量．构建了车型识别网络模型，并给出了模型参数学习、车型分类器等算法，包括MDL评分和贪婪搜索的结构学习、EM参数学习、随机模拟采样推理等。实验表明，该方法识别率较高，鲁棒性好，满足我国车型识别的实际要求。     

Updating of Travel Behavior Model Parameters and Estimation of Vehicle Trip Chain Based on Plate Scanning

This article proposes a maximum-likelihood method to update travel behavior model parameters and estimate vehicle trip chain based on plate scanning. The information from plate scanning consists of the vehicle passing time and sequence of scanned vehicles along a series of plate scanning locations (sensor locations installed on road network). The article adopts the hierarchical travel behavior decision model, in which the upper tier is an activity pattern generation model, and the lower tier is a destination and route choice model. The activity pattern is an individual profile of daily performed activities. To obtain reliable estimation results, the sensor location schemes for predicting trip chaining are proposed. The maximum-likelihood estimation problem based on plate scanning is formulated to update model parameters. This problem is solved by the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. The model and algorithm are then tested with simulated plate scanning data in a modified Sioux Falls network. The results illustrate the efficiency of the model and its potential for an application to large and complex network cases.     

Development of algorithms for commercial vehicle mass and road grade estimation

Estimation algorithms for road slope angle and vehicle mass are presented for commercial vehicles. It is well known that vehicle weight and road grade significantly affect the longitudinal motion of a commercial vehicle. However, it is very difficult to measure the weight and road slope angle in real time because of lack of sensor technology. In addition, the total weight of a commercial vehicles varies depending on the freight. In this study, the road grade and vehicle mass estimation algorithms are proposed using the RLS (Recursive Least Square) method and only the in-vehicle sensors. The proposed algorithms are verified in experiments using a commercial vehicle under various conditions.     

基于浮动车定位数据的高速公路区间平均速度估计

通过对浮动车定位数据情况的分析,可知大部分速度估计算法仅适用于采样时间间隔不大于行程时间的情况,为在相同浮动车比例以及采样时间间隔的条件下,提高数据利用率,以提高速度估计结果的路网覆盖率,提出两种速度估计算法:车辆跟踪法、速度-距离积分法,并给出路段区间平均速度自适应估计模型.使用真实交通流OD 数据进行仿真,结果表明...     

Slip-based terrain estimation with a skid-steer vehicle

In this paper, a novel approach for online terrain characterisation is presented using a skid-steer vehicle. In the context of this research, terrain characterisation refers to the estimation of physical parameters that affects the terrain ability to support vehicular motion. These parameters are inferred from the modelling of the kinematic and dynamic behaviour of a skid-steer vehicle that reveals the underlying relationships governing the vehicle-terrain interaction. The concept of slip track is introduced as a measure of the slippage experienced by the vehicle during turning motion. The proposed terrain estimation system includes common onboard sensors, that is, wheel encoders, electrical current sensors and yaw rate gyroscope. Using these components, the system can characterise terrain online during normal vehicle operations. Experimental results obtained from different surfaces are presented to validate the system in the field showing its effectiveness and potential benefits to implement adaptive driving assistance systems or to automatically update the parameters of onboard control and planning algorithms.     

Analysis of high dynamic car manoeuvres using two types of lever-arm correction

As navigation algorithms using Kalman filters, fuzzy or adaptive algorithms, interacting multiple model (IMM) algorithms and other possible solutions combining data from several sensors, have been progressively used in the last decade, there has been little advance in developing a robust and accurate device available for car manufacturers. The most solutions fail in long-term reliability and/or use too generalized linearization models. This is why in this paper we have examined some high dynamic manoeuvres which are usually a part of automotive tests. Some major issues during these manoeuvres were identified and a modified Kalman filter solution is presented. The problem of positioning of an inertial device within a vehicle is addressed and a transformation of measured data to the centre of gravity (COG) or rotation point (RP) of the vehicle is introduced. We also propose a few methods to identify the start and the stop of a brake test and show distance difference between conventional and modified Kalman algorithm during driving in circles. Finally, a direct and indirect lever-arm correction is introduced and real road tests are made to present an improvement in outputs using one-device sensor setup.     

A New Method for Accurately Estimating the Weight of Moving Vehicles Using Piezoelectric Sensors and Adaptive-footprint Tire Model

Summary This paper presents new methods for estimating the axle weight of a moving vehicle, using two piezoelectric sensors and adaptive-footprint tire model. It is more difficult to weigh vehicles in motion accurately than to weigh standing vehicles. The difficulties in weighing moving vehicles result from sensor limitations as well as dynamic loading effects induced by vehicle/pavement interactions. For example, two identical vehicles with the same weight will generate sensor signals that differ in the shape and the peak value, depending the tire pressure, vehicle speed, road roughness, and sensor characteristics. This paper develops a method that is much less sensitive to these variable factors in determining the axle weight of a moving vehicle. In the developed method, first the piezoelectric sensor signal is reconstructed using the inverse dynamics of a high-pass filter representing the piezoelectric sensor. Then, the reconstructed signal, is normalized, using the nominal road/tire contact length obtained using an adaptive-footprint tire model, and then integrated. Experiments are performed with 3 vehicles of known weight ranging from 1,400 kg to 28,040 kg. The developed method is compared to two other algorithms. Results show that the developed method is most consistent and accurate.     

A New Method for Accurately Estimating the Weight of Moving Vehicles Using Piezoelectric Sensors and Adaptive-footprint Tire Model

Summary This paper presents new methods for estimating the axle weight of a moving vehicle, using two piezoelectric sensors and adaptive-footprint tire model. It is more difficult to weigh vehicles in motion accurately than to weigh standing vehicles. The difficulties in weighing moving vehicles result from sensor limitations as well as dynamic loading effects induced by vehicle/pavement interactions. For example, two identical vehicles with the same weight will generate sensor signals that differ in the shape and the peak value, depending the tire pressure, vehicle speed, road roughness, and sensor characteristics. This paper develops a method that is much less sensitive to these variable factors in determining the axle weight of a moving vehicle. In the developed method, first the piezoelectric sensor signal is reconstructed using the inverse dynamics of a high-pass filter representing the piezoelectric sensor. Then, the reconstructed signal, is normalized, using the nominal road/tire contact length obtained using an adaptive-footprint tire model, and then integrated. Experiments are performed with 3 vehicles of known weight ranging from 1,400 kg to 28,040 kg. The developed method is compared to two other algorithms. Results show that the developed method is most consistent and accurate.     

A comparative study on fault detection methods of rail vehicle suspension systems based on acceleration measurements

Reliability of the railway vehicle suspension system is of critical importance to the safety of the vehicle. On-line health condition monitoring for the suspension system of rail vehicles offers a number of benefits such as preventing further deterioration of vehicle performance, enhancing vehicle safety, increasing operational reliability and availability, and reducing maintenance costs. It is desirable to timely detect the fault and monitor the performance degradation of vehicle suspension systems. In this paper, a comparative study on fault detection methods of urban rail vehicle suspension systems is considered. A novel sensor configuration is proposed where the underlying vehicle system is equipped with only acceleration sensors in the four corners of the carbody, the leading and trailing bogie, respectively. A mathematical model is developed for the considered vehicle suspension system. Both model-based and data-driven approaches are studied for the suspension fault detection problem. The robust observer, the Kalman filter combined with the generalised likelihood ratio test method, the dynamical principle components analysis and the canonical variate analysis approaches are applied to the fault detection problem. The simulation is carried out by means of the professional multi-body simulation tool, SIMPACK. In addition, the advantages and disadvantages of these methods are compared. The simulation results show that the data-driven methods outperform the model-based methods.     

基于竞争循环双Q网络的自适应交通信号控制

为了更加有效且可靠地自适应协调交通流量,以减少车辆的停车等待时间为目标,提出了3DRQN(Dueling Double Deep Recurrent Q Network)算法对交通信号进行控制。算法基于深度Q网络,利用竞争架构、双Q网络和目标网络提高算法的学习性能;引入了LSTM网络编码历史状态信息,减少算法对当前时刻状态信息的依赖,使算法具有更强的鲁棒性。同时,针对实际应用中定位精度不高、车辆等待时间难以获取等问题,设计了低分辨率的状态空间和基于车流压力的奖励函数。基于SUMO建立交叉口的交通流模型,使用湖北省赤壁市交叉口收集的车流数据进行测试,并与韦伯斯特固定配时的策略、全感应式的信号控制策略和基于3DQN(Dueling Double Deep Q Network)的自适应控制策略进行比较。结果表明:所提出的3DRQN算法相较上述3种方法的车辆平均等待时间减少了25%以上。同时,在不同车流量及左转比例的场景中,随着左转比例和车流量的增大,3DRQN算法的车辆平均等待时间会有明显上升,但仍能保持较好效果,在车流量为1 800 pcu·h^-1、左转比例为50%的场景下,3DRQN算法的车辆平均等待时间相比3DQN算法减少约15%,相比感应式方法减少约24%,相比固定时长的方法减少约33%。在车流激增、道路通行受限、传感器失效等特殊场景下,该算法具有良好的适应性,即使在传感器50%失效的极端场景下,也优于固定时长的策略10%以上。表明3DRQN算法具有良好的控制效果,能有效减少车辆的停车等待时间,且具有较好的鲁棒性。     

Adhesion estimation at the wheel–rail interface using advanced model-based filtering

The railway industry in the UK is currently expanding the use of condition monitoring of railway vehicles. These systems can be used to improve maintenance procedures or could potentially be used to monitor current vehicle running conditions without the use of cost prohibitive sensors. This paper looks at a novel method for the online detection of areas of low adhesion in the wheel/rail contact that cause significant disruption to the running of a network, particularly in the autumn season. The proposed method uses a Kalman–Bucy filter to estimate the creep forces in the wheel–rail contact area; post-processing is then applied to provide information indicative of the actual adhesion level. The algorithm uses data that, in practice, would be available from a set of modest cost inertial sensors mounted on the vehicle bogie and wheel-sets. The efficacy of the approach is demonstrated using simulation data from a nonlinear dynamic model of the vehicle and its track interface.     

An overview: modern techniques for railway vehicle on-board health monitoring systems

Health monitoring systems with low-cost sensor networks and smart algorithms are always needed in both passenger trains and heavy haul trains due to the increasing need for reliability and safety in the railway industry. This paper focuses on an overview of existing approaches applied for railway vehicle on-board health monitoring systems. The approaches applied in the data measurement systems and the data analysis systems in railway on-board health monitoring systems are presented in this paper, including methodologies, theories and applications. The pros and cons of the various approaches are analysed to determine appropriate benchmarks for an effective and efficient railway vehicle on-board health monitoring system. According to this review, inertial sensors are the most popular due to their advantages of low cost, robustness and low power consumption. Linearisation methods are required for the model-based methods which would inevitably introduce error to the estimation results, and it is time-consuming to include all possible conditions in the pre-built database required for signal-based methods. Based on this review, future development trends in the design of new low-cost health monitoring systems for railway vehicles are discussed.     

Neural-network multiple models filter (NMM)-based position estimation system for autonomous vehicles

A highly accurate and reliable vehicle position estimation system is an important component of an autonomous driving system. In generally, a global positioning system (GPS) receiver is employed for the vehicle position estimation of autonomous vehicles. However, a stand-alone GPS does not always provide accurate and reliable information of the vehicle position due to frequent GPS blockages and multipath errors. In order to overcome these problems, a sensor fusion scheme that combines the data from the GPS receiver and several on-board sensors has been studied. In previous researches, a single model filter-based sensor fusion algorithm was used to integrate information from the GPS and on-board sensors. However, an estimate obtained from a single model is difficult to cover the various driving environments, including urban areas, off-road areas, and highways. Thus, a multiple models filter (MMF) has been introduced to address this limitation by adapting multiple models to a wide range of driving conditions. An adaptation of the multiple model is achieved through the use of the model probability. The MMF combines several vehicle models using the model probabilities, which indicate the suitability of the current driving condition. In this paper, we propose a vehicle position estimation algorithm for an autonomous vehicle that is based on a neural network (NN)-based MMF. The model probabilities are determined through the NN. The proposed position estimation system was evaluated through simulations and experiments. The experimental results show that the proposed position estimation algorithm is suitable for application in an autonomous driving system over a wide range of driving conditions.     

用方位角算法和转向角算法解决节点权重问题

论述了车辆导航系统中路线优化算法所研究的核心内容,并对由交叉口延误带来的节点权重问题进行了研究。针对以往算法的时间复杂度和空间复杂度高以及拓扑数据难以建立和实时更新的缺陷,构造了方位角算法和转向角算法以解决节点权重问题,并以北京市二环以内的典型路网为研究对象,对上述算法进行了实证研究。理论分析和实际运行的结果表明,这些算法有效地克服了以往解决方案的不足,大大提高了算法的计算速度,并可在各种交通管制措施的限制下,提供有效的路径规划方案。     

Low cost design of parallel parking assist system based on an ultrasonic sensor

This paper presents a low cost design and implementation of a parallel parking assist system (PPAS) based on ultrasonic sensors. Generally, a PPAS requires several types of sensors, such as an ultrasonic sensor, camera sensor, radar sensor and laser sensor for parking space detection. However, our proposed PPAS only requires two ultrasonic sensors on the front and lateral sides for parking space detection. Moreover, a steering angle sensor and wheel speed sensor installed in the vehicle are used to obtain vehicle position information for localization in ultrasonic range data. The hardware architecture of the PPAS based on an electronic control unit (ECU) module, sensor modules and a human machine interface (HMI) module was proposed. Moreover, the software architecture of the PPAS is based on system initialization, scheduling, recognition and a control algorithm. In particular, a novel sensor algorithm was proposed to minimize the vehicle corner error of the ultrasonic sensor. A prototype of the PPAS based on the proposed architecture was constructed. The experimental results demonstrate that the implemented prototype is robust and successfully performs parking space detection and automatic steering control. Finally, the low cost design and implementation of the PPAS was possible due to the cheap ultrasonic sensors, simple hardware design and low computational complexity of the proposed algorithm.     

智能车辆安全辅助驾驶技术研究近况

论述了安全辅助驾驶技术的研究现状、研究的必要性以及研究进展。安全辅助驾驶技术包括车道偏离预警与保持、前方车辆探测及安全车距保持、行人检测、驾驶员行为监测、车辆运动控制与通讯等。分析了各种传感器的优缺点及其在实际应用过程中存在的问题,基于单一传感器不能很好地解决安全辅助驾驶技术可靠性和环境适应能力的要求,应结合激光雷达技术解决图像模糊问题,利用红外传感器增强机器视觉识别的可靠性,未来的安全辅助驾驶技术应该采取多种传感器融合的技术,结合毫米波雷达和激光雷达系统具有深度测量精确的特点,将极大的推动汽车安全辅助驾驶系统的应用和推广。     

Evaluation of detection sensitivity and count performance of advanced vehicle detection technologies at a signalized intersection

This article evaluates the stop-bar detection and count performance of three advanced vehicle detection sensors under various environmental conditions at a signalized intersection. Continuing advancements to vehicle detection technologies and improvements to their detection capabilities to overcome issues from impacting conditions necessitates testing the performance of new and upgraded sensor products to evaluate their performance and identify the most suitable products for various climates and weather conditions. The three evaluated sensors were Autoscope Encore video, Iteris Vantage Edge 2 video, and Wavetronix SmartSensor Matrix microwave sensors. The three sensors performed with high detection sensitivity during ideal environmental conditions with up to 99.9% detection accuracy levels and are suitable for traffic monitoring centers that rely on remote access to the monitored sites and the collected data. However, they were affected by some extreme adverse weather conditions, mainly daytime and nighttime snow, daytime fog, dawn lighting, and strong winds (for high mounted devices). The selection of a sensor product will depend on the type of application and the priority given to the type of traffic data being collected. Overall, the Iteris video sensor performed with the highest detection sensitivity levels, with the Wavetronix Matrix microwave sensor performing similarly under most conditions (14 of 19 evaluated conditions). Autoscope video provided the highest count accuracies and also provides a much broader data collection capability. The results of this study will help transportation agencies in selecting suitable vehicle detection sensor technologies for future installations within their jurisdiction and improved data collection.     

Real-time multiple-model estimation of centre of gravity position in automotive vehicles

In this paper, we present a methodology based on multiple models and switching for real-time estimation of centre of gravity (CG) position in automotive vehicles. The method utilises well-known simple linear vehicle models for lateral and roll dynamics and assumes the availability of standard stock automotive sensors. We illustrate the technique with numerical simulations as well as with measured sensor data from an sport utility vehicle. We also compare our estimation results with traditional linear least-squares estimators to show the efficacy of our technique. Finally, we give a simple application example for implementing the idea in automotive vehicles as a switch for rollover controller activation.     

Detection and Classification of Vehicles by Measurement of Road-Pavement Vibration and by Means of Supervised Machine Learning

Road vehicle detection and, to a lesser extent, classification have received considerable attention, in particular for the purpose of traffic monitoring by transportation authorities. A multitude of sensors and systems have been developed to assist people in traffic monitoring. Camera-based systems have enjoyed wide adoption over the last decade, partially substituting for more traditional techniques. Methods based on road-pavement vibration are not as common as camera-based systems. However, vibration sensors may be of interest when sensors must be out of sight and insensitive to environmental conditions, such as fog. We present and discuss our work on detection and classification of vehicles by measurement of road-pavement vibration and by means of supervised machine learning. We describe the entire processing chain from sensor data acquisition to vehicle classification and discuss our results for the task of vehicle detection and the task of vehicle classification separately. Using data for a single vibration sensor, our results show a performance ranging between 94% and near 100% for the detection task (1340 samples) and between 43% and 86% for the classification task (experiment specific, between 454 and 1243 samples).