Determination of Tyre-Road Friction Using Sensor Data Fusion

This paper presents the sensor data fusion approach of the EU project FRICTI@N. The project objective was to create an on-board system for estimating friction and road slipperiness to enhance the performance of integrated and cooperative vehicle safety systems. Using a single sensor approach it is difficult to provide high quality friction information for multiple safety systems. Consequently, three types of sensors were used in the study: (I) existing in-vehicle sensors measuring vehicle dynamics, (II) environmental sensors, and (III) a tyre-based sensor prototype. A data fusion architecture is presented consisting of three feature fusion modules and a decision fusion module. The algorithms have been validated with a development vehicle and test results are presented achieving nearly continuous friction estimation.