Method for Determining Run-Curves for Vehicles in Real-Time Subject to Dynamic Travel Time and Speed Limit Constraint

A method for determining an optimal run-curve for a vehicle along a route between two locations comprising pre-processing steps and real-time processing steps,

• wherein the preprocessing steps comprise:
• defining, for the vehicle, a state space based on possible velocities and possible locations along the route;
• generating, from the state space, a transition matrix for possible actions of the vehicle, and for evaluating a set of weights and corresponding travel times, wherein each weight is a relative importance of minimizing the corresponding travel time with respect to a rate of energy consumption E by the vehicle;
• and
• wherein the real-time processing steps comprise:
• receiving a current travel time T and current speed limits;
• identifying a subspace of the state space based on the current speed limits while considering dynamics of the vehicle;
• updating the transition matrix for the subspace according to the current speed limits;
• determining initial weights for solving a minimization problem using the set of weights and the current travel time;
• determining an optimal weight μ by solving the minimization problem with the initial weights;
• and
• solving the minimization problem sequentially with different weights to obtain the optimal run-curve, wherein the minimization problem uses an objective function μE+(1−μ)T subject to constraints, wherein the steps are performed in a processor.