Energy-efficient cruise control – a pre-project study

This study uses theoretical considerations along with computer simulation and driving experiments on a road section to evaluate the possibilities of defining an energy-efficient speed adaptation strategy. The goal of the overall study is to include various external parameters not only the alignment of the road both vertically and horizontally, but most reasons to reduce speed or even stop the vehicle due to information that can be retrieved from high resolution maps and road information systems. This pre-project aims at the vertical alignment, which has shown promising results in earlier studies and even commercially available systems for mainly trucks. The pre-project is used to develop a setup for a computer simulation which then will be compared with practical field results. The setup encompasses theoretical considerations and MatLab®/Simulink® tool developments based on partly earlier works and a field experiment using a small vehicle with automatic transmission. The experiment showed promising results.