Adaptive Multi-Objective Predictive Cruise Control With Digital Map Using a Utopia Tracking Method

The integration of look-ahead information into Model Predictive Control (MPC) frameworks has shown promise for intelligent transportation systems. However, transitioning Predictive Cruise Control (PCC) system research into practical application poses challenges due to numerous weighting parameters and increased computational demands in complex driving environments. Although the Weighted Sum Method is commonly used in PCC system research to balance fuel consumption and trip time objectives, it requires time-consuming weight tuning and often results in suboptimal performance due to fixed weighting parameters. To address this, this paper proposes a Utopia-tracking Model Predictive Control (UTM-MPC) controller, where the cost function is reformulated as the sum of the distances between the objectives and the average Utopia point over the prediction horizon. By analyzing the Pareto front of the PCC optimization problem under varying slope profiles extracted from digital map data, we demonstrate that the proposed UTM-MPC effectively leverages the geometric characteristics of the Pareto front to identify preferred trade-off solutions. The adaptive weighting mechanism—derived from the online-calculated Utopia point—enhances the robustness of the PCC system under complex and dynamic driving conditions. To mitigate the computational burden associated with integrating UTM-MPC into the MPC framework, we introduce a tailored neighboring extremal-based solving algorithm. Leveraging the receding horizon nature of MPC, this method requires only minimal updates to efficiently identify an optimal solution near the nominal trajectory from the previous sampling instance. Simulation results show that the UTM-MPC controller, with its adaptive weighting strategy, consistently outperforms the traditional Weighted Sum Method in terms of both fuel efficiency and trip time.