Automatic driving control by robotic driver considering the lack of a driving force at changing gears

Vehicle performance tests are conducted to evaluate factors of vehicle performance such as fuel consumption and durability. Robotic drivers are often used in these tests to ensure that performance evaluate is reproducible, and various types of vehicles have been tested. Manual transmission (MT) vehicles are widely used and represent about 50% of vehicles in the world. When the driver selects the gear ratio in MT, speed control performance is degraded during changing the gear. Because a torque transmission between the engine and wheels is cut during this sequence, the driver must drive the vehicle while considering the influence of changing the gear. Therefore, control performance in MTs depends on driver's technique. If robotic drivers are used with MT, there is a possibility that performance will be significantly degraded because the robot cannot adjust to change the gear while driving. In this paper, we realized the driving while considering shift changes by the robotic driver. First, we modeled the lack of a driving force using the dynamic characteristics of the vehicle and the deceleration during changing the gear. We then derived a target vehicle speed waveform using the lack of a driving force model. Finally, we performed vehicle tests using a robotic driver. We confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed system from the results of actual vehicle tests.