Vehicle powertrain integrated predictive dynamic control for autonomous driving

An apparatus for controlling a vehicle, comprising:

• a processor configured to:
• generate, based on a vehicle speed driving plan, a sequence of gear shifts for a plurality of gears and a plurality of gear usage weights, wherein the sequence of gear shifts enables the vehicle to track a reference kinematic trajectory associated with the vehicle speed driving plan within a predetermined tolerance;
• generate, based on the plurality of gear usage weights, a blended smooth wheel domain fuel consumption map as a weighted sum approximation of a plurality of engine domain fuel consumption maps, each of the plurality of engine domain fuel consumption maps corresponding to each of the plurality of gears;
• generate, based on performing an optimization on the blended smooth wheel domain fuel consumption map subject to a torque availability constraint, one or more wheel domain control commands,
• wherein the blended smooth wheel domain fuel consumption map is derived as a weighted sum approximation of a plurality of engine domain fuel consumption maps,
• wherein an engine domain fuel consumption map corresponds to each of a plurality of gears,
• wherein the torque availability constraint is generated using a local affine approximation, and
• wherein the optimization is based on a model predictive control (MPC) framework that generates the one or more control commands for a current time and a finite time-horizon subsequent to the current time;
• convert the one or more wheel domain control commands to one or more powertrain-executable engine domain control commands;
• and
• cause the vehicle to track a reference kinematic trajectory associated with a vehicle speed driving plan within a predetermined tolerance based on the one or more powertrain-executable engine domain control commands by a transmission of the one or more powertrain-executable engine domain control commands to a powertrain of the vehicle, wherein the powertrain is configured to operate the plurality of gears.

An apparatus for controlling a vehicle, comprising:

• a processor configured to:
• generate, based on performing an optimization on a blended smooth wheel domain fuel consumption map subject to a modified torque availability constraint, one or more wheel domain control commands,
• wherein the blended smooth wheel domain fuel consumption map is derived as a weighted sum approximation of a plurality of engine domain fuel consumption maps,
• wherein an engine domain fuel consumption map corresponds to each of the plurality of gears,
• wherein the modified torque availability constraint is based on an application of a local affine approximation to a plurality of torque availability constraints,
• wherein a torque availability constraint corresponds to each of a plurality of gears;
• convert the one or more wheel domain control commands to one or more powertrain-executable engine domain control commands;
• and
• cause the vehicle to track a reference kinematic trajectory associated with a vehicle speed driving plan within a predetermined tolerance based on the one or more powertrain-executable engine domain control commands by a transmission of the one or more powertrain-executable engine domain control commands to a powertrain of the vehicle, wherein the powertrain is configured to operate the plurality of gears.