About the project
Estimating peak tyre-road friction coefficient for autonomous electric vehicles (EVs) is still an open research problem. A potential solution will make a huge impact in their active safety systems, which are crucial for autonomous EVs given the extra importance of vehicle safety while moving towards higher levels of driving automation.
You'll work on estimating peak tyre-road friction coefficient of an electric vehicle (EV), a fundamental vehicle safety problem. This research is crucial and timely as we move towards autonomous vehicles to reduce human driving hours and resolve driver shortage issues, and towards EVs to limit the adverse effects of climate change.
In a ground vehicle, the maximum forces at the tyre-road contact points play an important role in vehicle safety. The peak tyre-road friction coefficient, which varies depending on the road and tyre conditions, is needed to estimate these maxima. Although estimation of this friction coefficient is well-researched, existing methods are only effective if the vehicle's steering or braking or throttle is moderate or heavy, i.e. when the vehicle may already be in a dangerous scenario.
Some of these solutions are currently used in the active vehicle safety systems in human driven vehicles, where humans are responsible for safety. But in the context of autonomous vehicles, the vehicles are responsible for safety. Therefore, to avoid a potential collision, an autonomous vehicle must decide when to initiate emergency braking or steering or throttle.
This decision making needs the maximum tyre force to be known before the vehicle reaches a dangerous scenario. This requires peak tyre-road friction estimation when the vehicle's acceleration magnitude is low, i.e. when the vehicle speed is nearly constant. This is still an open research problem. A potential solution will make a huge impact in the design of active vehicle safety systems.
