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INTR O DUC TIO N C R UISE C O NTR O L

 SYSTEM

MO DELING
Cruise Control: System Modeling
ANALYSIS
Key MATLAB commands used in this tutorial are: ss, tf

CONTROL
Contents
PID
Physical setup
R O O T LO C US
System equations

FR EQ UENC Y System parameters

State-space model
STATE-SPAC E

Transfer function model

DIGITAL

Physical setup
SIMULINK
Automatic cruise control is an excellent example of a feedback
MO DELING
control system found in many modern vehicles. The purpose of the

C O NTR O L cruise control system is to maintain a constant vehicle speed despite

external disturbances, such as changes in wind or road grade. This

is accomplished by measuring the vehicle speed, comparing it to the

desired or reference speed, and automatically adjusting the throttle

according to a control law.

We consider here a simple model of the vehicle dynamics, shown in

the free-body diagram (FBD) above. The vehicle, of mass m, is acted

on by a control force, u. The force u represents the force generated at

the road/tire interface. For this simplified model we will assume that
we can control this force directly and will neglect the dynamics of the

powertrain, tires, etc., that go into generating the force. The resistive
forces, bv, due to rolling resistance and wind drag, are assumed to
forces, bv, due to rolling resistance and wind drag, are assumed to

vary linearly with the vehicle velocity, v, and act in the direction
opposite the vehicle's motion.

System equations

With these assumptions we are left with a first-order mass-damper

system. Summing forces in the x-direction and applying Newton's 2nd

law, we arrive at the following system equation:

(1)

Since we are interested in controlling the speed of the vehicle, the

output equation is chosen as follows

(2)

System parameters

For this example, let's assume that the parameters of the system are:

(m) vehicle mass 1000 kg

(b) damping coefficient 50 N.s/m

State-space model

First-order systems have only has a single energy storage mode, in

this case the kinetic energy of the car, and therefore only one state
variable is needed, the velocity. The state-space representation is

therefore:

(3)

(4)

We enter this state-space model into MATLAB using the following

commands:

m = 1000;

b = 50;

A = -b/m;
 B = 1/m;

C = 1;

D = 0;

cruise_ss = ss(A,B,C,D);

Transfer function model

Taking the Laplace transform of the governing differential equation

and assuming zero initial conditions, we find the transfer function of

the cruise control system to be:

(5)

We enter the transfer function model into MATLAB using the following

commands:

s = tf('s');
P_cruise = 1/(m*s+b);

Published w ith MATLAB 7.14

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