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Rollover has for long been a major safety concern for trucks, and will be even more so as automated driving is envisaged to becoming a key element of future mobility. A natural way to address rollover is to extend the capabilities of current active-safety systems with a system that intervenes by steering or braking actuation when there is a risk of rollover. Assessing and predicting the rollover is usually performed using rollover indices calculated either from lateral acceleration or lateral load transfer. Since these indices are evaluated based on different physical observations it is not obvious how they can be compared or how well they reflect rollover events in different situations. In this paper we investigate the implication of the above mentioned rollover indices in different critical maneuvers for a heavy 8×4 twin-steer truck.

For a fuel optimal gear shift control, when look ahead information is available, the impact of the automated manual transmission (AMT) gear-shifting process is analyzed. For a standard discrete heavy truck transmission, answers are found on when to shift gears, prior to or when in an uphill slope. The gear-shifting process of a standard AMT is modeled in order to capture the fuel and time aspects of the gear shift. A numerical optimization is performed by dynamic programming, minimizing fuel consumption and time by controlling fuel injection and gear. Since a standard AMT does not have look ahead information, it sometimes gears down unnecessarily and thus gives a significantly higher fuel consumption compared to the optimal control. However, if gearing down is inevitable, the AMT gear-shifting strategy, based on engine thresholds, is well-functioning so that the optimal control only gives marginal additional savings.

The problem addressed is how to drive a heavy truck over various road topographies such that the fuel consumption is minimized. Using a realistic model of a truck powertrain, an optimization problem for minimization of fuel consumption is formulated. Through the solutions of this problem optimal speed profiles are found. An advantage here is that explicit analytical solutions can be found, and this is done for a few constructed test roads. The test roads are constructed to be easy enough to enable analytical solutions but still capture the important properties of real roads. In this way the obtained solutions provide explanations to some behaviour obtained by ourselves and others using more elaborate modeling and numeric optimization like dynamic programming. The results show that for level road and in small gradients the optimal solution is to drive with constant speed.

New and exciting possibilities in vehicle control are revealed by the consideration of topography, for example through the combination of GPS and three dimensional road maps. How information about future road slopes can be utilized in a heavy truck is explored. The aim is set at reducing the fuel consumption over a route without increasing the total travel time. A model predictive control (MPC) scheme is used to control the longitudinal behavior of the vehicle, which entails determining accelerator and brake levels and also which gear to engage. The optimization is accomplished through discrete dynamic programming. A cost function that weighs fuel use, negative deviations from the reference velocity, velocity changes, gear shifts and brake use is used to define the optimization criterion. Computer simulations back and forth on 127 km of a typical highway route in Sweden, show that the fuel consumption in a heavy truck can be reduced with 2.5% with a negligible change in travel time.

Rolling resistance of inflated tires is a factor that contributes to the total load and fuel consumption of a vehicle. Therefore, models of rolling resistance is an important area within computer simulations of vehicles used to predict fuel consumption and emissions. In these applications the coefficient of rolling resistance is usually described as a function of velocity. We have earlier shown that this is not a satisfactory solution [1, 2]. In this paper it is demonstrated that the temperature of the tires is a dominating factor for rolling resistance in real driving. The tires typically start at ambient temperature and are then warmed up by the heat generated in the tire. As the temperature increases the rolling resistance decreases (to some limit). After a long period (2 hours for truck tires) of driving at constant conditions, a stationary temperature (and rolling resistance) is reached.

Driveline control is a challenging area. With traditional fuel metering systems, driveline oscillations may follow load disturbances or changes in accelerator position. This problem, emphasized with increased engine power, together with overall increased performance demands leads to a need for more advanced driveline control. The main contribution of the paper is a strategy for fuel metering with active handling of driveline resonances, reducing wheel speed oscillations. Experiments and modeling using a 6x2 heavy truck lead to a linear model capturing the significant torsional resonances in the driveline. A formulation tractable for analysis, design, and implementation is developed. Field trials show that the engine can be controlled to reduce low frequency driveline oscillations, also when facing engine torque restrictions due to diesel smoke reduction. The system thus improves both performance and driveability.

By using engine controlled gear shifting, a manual transmission can be automated without using the clutch during the shift event. The main contribution of this paper is a novel extension of the existing system using active handling of driveline resonances. The strategy is based on a model of the transmission torque, which is derived by using experimental data from a heavy truck. A key step is the design of a criterion for a controller that drives the transmission torque to zero with damped resonances and with a control signal realizable by the engine. The proposed solution offers a possibility to optimize the time needed for a gear shift, which is important since the vehicle is free rolling when in gear-shift condition. Furthermore, neutral gear can successfully be engaged also when facing initial driveline oscillations and load disturbances.