VEHICLE MOTION CONTROL 8

Speed Response Curves

When a new speed is The curves of Figure 8.3c show the response of a cruise control system
requested, the time with a PI control strategy to a sudden disturbance. These curves are all for the
required for the vehicle same car cruising initially at 60 mph along a level road and encountering an
to reach that speed is upsloping hill. The only difference in the response of these curves is the
affected by the control controller gain parameters.
system’s damping Consider, first, the curve that initially drops to about 30 mph and then
coefficient. increases, overshooting the desired speed and oscillating above and below the
desired speed until it eventually decays to the desired 60 mph. This curve has a
relatively low damping ratio as determined by the controller parameters KP and
KI and takes more time to come to the final steady value.
Next, consider the curve that drops initially to about 40 mph, then
increases with a small overshoot and decays to the desired speed. The numer-
ical value for this damping ratio (see Chapter 2) is about 0.7, whereas the first
curve had a damping ratio of about 0.4. Finally, consider the solid curve of
Figure 8.3c. This curve corresponds to critical damping. This situation involves
the most rapid response of the car to a disturbance, with no overshoot.
The importance of these performance curves is that they demonstrate
how the performance of a cruise control system is affected by the controller
gains. These gains are simply parameters that are contained in the control
system. They determine the relationship between the error, the integral of
the error, and the actuator control signal.
Usually a control system designer attempts to balance the proportional
and integral control gains so that the system is optimally damped. However,
because of system characteristics, in many cases it is impossible, impractical, or
inefficient to achieve the optimal time response and therefore another response
is chosen. The control system should make the engine drive force react quickly
and accurately to the command speed, but should not overtax the engine in
the process. Therefore, the system designer chooses the control electronics that
provide the following system qualities:
1. Quick response
2. Relative stability
3. Small steady-state error
4. Optimization of the control effort required
Digital Cruise Control
The explanation of the operation of cruise control thus far has been
based on a continuous-time formulation of the problem. This formulation
correctly describes the concept for cruise control regardless of whether the
implementation is by analog or digital electronics. Cruise control is now
mostly implemented digitally using a microprocessor-based computer. For
such a system, proportional and integral control computations are performed
numerically in the computer. A block diagram for a typical digital cruise

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8 VEHICLE MOTION CONTROL

Figure 8.3
Cruise Control Speed Performance
VEHICLE SPEED

(a) TIME(SEC)
VEHICLE SPEED

(b) TIME(SEC)

control is shown in Figure 8.4. The vehicle speed sensor (described later in this
chapter) is digital. When the car reaches the desired speed, Sd, the driver
activates the speed set switch. At this time, the output of the vehicle speed
sensor is transferred to a storage register.
The computer continuously reads the actual vehicle speed, Sa, and
generates an error, en, at the sample time, tn (n is an integer). en = Sd - Sa at
time tn. A control signal, d, is computed that has the following form:
M
d n = K P en + K I Â en -m
m =1

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 VEHICLE MOTION CONTROL 8

Figure 8.3
Continued
CRUISE CONTROL RESPONSE TO DISTURBANCE

(c) TIME (SEC)

(Note: The symbol S in this equation means to add the M previously

calculated errors to the present error.) This sum, which is computed in the
cruise control computer, is then multiplied by the integral gain KI and added
to the most recent error multiplied by the proportional gain KP to form the
control signal.
This control signal is actually the duty cycle of a square wave (Vc) that is
applied to the throttle actuator (as explained later). The throttle opening
increases or decreases as d increases or decreases due to the action of the
throttle actuator.

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Figure 8.4
Digital Cruise Control
System

The operation of the cruise control system can be further understood by

examining the vehicle speed sensor and the actuator in detail. Figure 8.5a is a
sketch of a sensor suitable for vehicle speed measurement.
In a typical vehicle speed measurement system, the vehicle speed
information is mechanically coupled to the speed sensor by a flexible cable
coming from the driveshaft, which rotates at an angular speed proportional to
vehicle speed. A speed sensor driven by this cable generates a pulsed electrical
signal (Figure 8.5b) that is processed by the computer to obtain a digital
measurement of speed.
A speed sensor can be implemented magnetically or optically. The
magnetic speed sensor was discussed in Chapter 6, so we hypothesize an
optical sensor for the purposes of this discussion. For the hypothetical optical
sensor, a flexible cable drives a slotted disk that rotates between a light source
and a light detector. The placement of the source, disk, and detector is such
that the slotted disk interrupts or passes the light from source to detector,
depending on whether a slot is in the line of sight from source to detector. The
light detector produces an output voltage whenever a pulse of light from the
light source passes through a slot to the detector. The number of pulses
generated per second is proportional to the number of slots in the disk and
the vehicle speed:
f = NSK
where

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 VEHICLE MOTION CONTROL 8

Figure 8.5a
Digital Speed Sensor

Figure 8.5b
Digital Speed Sensor

f is the frequency in pulses per second

N is the number of slots in the sensor disk
S is the vehicle speed
K is the proportionality constant that accounts for differential gear ratio
and wheel size
It should be noted that either a magnetic or an optical speed sensor generates a
pulse train such as described here.
The output pulses are passed through a sample gate to a digital counter
(Figure 8.6). The gate is an electronic switch that either passes the pulses to the
counter or does not pass them depending on whether the switch is closed or
open. The time interval during which the gate is closed is precisely controlled
by the computer. The digital counter counts the number of pulses from the

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8 VEHICLE MOTION CONTROL

Figure 8.6
Digital Speed
Measurement System

light detector during time t that the gate is open. The number of pulses P that
is counted by the digital counter is given by:
P = tNSK
That is, the number P is proportional to vehicle speed S. The electrical signal
in the binary counter is in a digital format that is suitable for reading by the
cruise control computer.
Throttle Actuator
The throttle actuator is an electromechanical device that, in response to
an electrical input from the controller, moves the throttle through some
appropriate mechanical linkage. Two relatively common throttle actuators
operate either from manifold vacuum or with a stepper motor. The stepper
motor implementation operates similarly to the idle speed control actuator
described in Chapter 7. The throttle opening is either increased or decreased
by the stepper motor in response to the sequences of pulses sent to the two
windings depending on the relative phase of the two sets of pulses.
The throttle actuator that is operated by manifold vacuum through a
solenoid valve is similar to that used for the EGR valve described in Chapter 7
and further explained later in this chapter. During cruise control operation the
throttle position is set automatically by the throttle actuator in response to the
actuator signal generated in the control system. This type of manifold-vacuum-
operated actuator is illustrated in Figure 8.7.
Throttle actuators use A pneumatic piston arrangement is driven from the intake manifold
manifold vacuum to vacuum. The piston-connecting rod assembly is attached to the throttle lever.
pull a piston that is There is also a spring attached to the lever. If there is no force applied by the
mechanically linked to piston, the spring pulls the throttle closed. When an actuator input signal
the throttle. The energizes the electromagnet in the control solenoid, the pressure control valve
amount of vacuum is pulled down and changes the actuator cylinder pressure by providing a path
provided is controlled to manifold pressure. Manifold pressure is lower than atmospheric pressure, so
by a solenoid valve that the actuator cylinder pressure quickly drops, causing the piston to pull against
is turned on and off the throttle lever to open the throttle.
rapidly.

296 UNDERSTANDING AUTOMOTIVE ELECTRONICS