Minimizing vehicle fuel consumption on hilly roads based on dynamic programming

Vehicle fuel consumption is greatly influenced by roadway gradients and the driver’s driving behavior. To explore the great energy-saving potential of optimizing driver behavior on hilly roads, a novel eco-driving algorithm is defined and formulated based on dynamic programming. The new dynamic programming–based eco-driving algorithm generates the optimal velocity trajectory using information on the roadway gradients, vehicle longitudinal dynamics, and vehicle transient fuel consumption characteristics. A newer and accurater instantaneous fuel consumption model is developed and used in the objective function to ensure fuel economy driving. To verify the performance of the proposed dynamic programming–based eco-driving algorithm, co-simulations of MATLAB/Simulink and CarSim on typical roads and a real road are conducted. A typical cruise control algorithm that consists of two proportional–integral controllers is used as a comparison group. The simulation results show that approximately 6.89%–24.78% of fuel can be saved using the dynamic programming–based eco-driving algorithm compared with using the cruise control algorithm.