Torque-Based Load Estimation for Passenger Vehicles

An accurate estimate of the mass of a passenger vehicle is important for several safety systems and environmental aspects. In this thesis, an algorithm for estimating the mass of a passenger vehicle using the recursive least squares methodis presented. The algorithm is based on a physical model of the vehicle and is designed to be able to run in real-time onboard a vehicle and uses the wheel torque signal calculated in the electrical control unit in the engine. Therefore no estimation of the powertrain is needed. This is one contribution that distinguishes this thesis from previous work on the same topic, which has used the engine torque. The benefit of this is that no estimation of the dynamics in the powertrain is needed. The drawback of using this method is that the algorithm is dependenton the accuracy of the estimation done in the engine electrical control unit. Two different versions of the recursive least squares method (RLS) have been developed - one with a single forgetting factor and one with two forgetting factors. The estimation performance of the two versions are compared on several different real-world driving scenarios, which include driving on country roads, highways, and city roads, and different loads in the vehicle. The algorithm with a single forgetting factor estimates the mass with an average error for all tests of 4.42% and the algorithm with multiple forgetting factors estimates the mass with an average error of 4.15 %, which is in line with state-of-the-art algorithms that are presented in other studies. In a sensitivity analysis, it is shown that the algorithms are robust to changes in the drag coefficient. The single forgetting factor algorithm is robust to changes in the rolling resistance coefficient whereas the multiple forgetting factor algorithm needs the rolling resistance coefficient to be estimated with fairly good accuracy. Both versions of the algorithm need to know the wheel radius with an accuracy of 90 %. The results show that the algorithms estimate the mass accurately for all three different driving scenarios and estimate highway roads best with an average error of 2.83 % and 2.69 % for the single forgetting factor algorithm and the multiple forgetting factor algorithm, respectively. The results indicate it is possible to use either algorithm in a real-world scenario, where the choice of which algorithm depends on sought-after robustness