Indirect Instantaneous Car-Fuel Consumption Measurements

A method to estimate the instantaneous fuel consumption of a personal car, using speed and height data recorded by a global positioning system receiver and vehicle parameters accessible via national vehicle registers and databases on the world wide web, is proposed. The method is based upon a physical model describing the relationship between the dynamics of the car, engine speed, and energy consumption of the system. An evaluation of the proposed method is done by comparing the estimated instantaneous fuel consumption with that measured by the car's onboard diagnostics data bus. The results of three tests with different cars driven in mixed highway and urban conditions indicate that the instantaneous fuel consumption may be estimated with a root mean square error of ~0.3 [g/s], in terms of a normalized mean square error, that corresponded to slightly <;10%. One application of the proposed method is in the development of smartphone applications that educate drivers to drive more fuel efficiently.