Energy-Efficient Automated Driving for Everyday Maneuvers: Fundamentals to Experimentation

Energy-efficient driving is a key advancement in the deployment of automated vehicles once safety concerns are addressed. This letter formulates the energy-efficient driving problem with constraints and explores various solution methods for common driving scenarios. The findings, rooted in theory of optimal control and Pontryagin’s Minimum Principle (PMP), offer fundamental insights into energy-efficient driving strategies in every-day driving scenarios. Analytical insights from PMP, coupled with fast analytical solution of the respective boundary value problem, enabled implementation in a real-time control system and near-optimal energy savings. The proposed approach was validated through real vehicle testing on the track, with results demonstrating that automated eco-driving can achieve significant energy savings over human drivers in basic daily driving scenarios. This letter not only highlights the effectiveness of the proposed approach but also provides practical guidance for integrating energy-efficient driving strategies into real-world automated driving and advanced driver assistance systems.