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Application of Fuzzy Logic to Shift Scheduling

Method for Automatic Transmission


S.Sakaguchi, I.Sakai, T.Haga
HONDA R&D Co., Ltd.
1-4-1 Chuo Wako-shi
Saitama 351-01 ,JAPAN

Abstract-Fuxzy control, which is now widely U@ in a varied then materializing its controlling methods. The fuzzy control
number of fields, has also proved its usefulness in automobile attempts to achieve control by incorporating human decision-
engineering, where it can be used to automatically achieve making abilities into the controller as demonstrated by
constant speeds and control anti-lock brake systems. As seen in operators skilled in operating highly complicated systems. In
the case of automatic control of plants, where the operator's short, the method aims to simulate human behavior using a
strategy is compiled for the purpose, these systems can only be
realized af'ter a knowledge base has been established. Knowledge
computer.
bases have been based on interviews and questionnaires given to For an example, a human operator's control strategy needs
operators and their knowledge in how control devices work. This to be first established on knowledge base for automating a
approach was tended to obtain only the most characteristic manufacturing plant.
knowledge and failed to provide satMactory control results. In A conventional approach for composing the knowledge is
view of this problem, we are proposing a way to construct a "questionnaire and interview" methods. This approach,
knowledge base that has the potential for a wide range of however, tends to extract knowledge of only very specific
applications. features and not of overall circumstance. As a result, it is
The behavior of human beings is generally regarded as a often unsuccessful to materialize the control by mereIy
cyde of recognition of their environment, judgement, and action.
This model of behavior consists of two processes: a responsive
describing the knowledge, obtained through question and
action devoid of intentional judgement and action based on interview methods, in accordance of the rules of
knowledge and restrictions. Using this model, the authors have "IF...THEN..." which in tum poses a serious problem in
constructed a three-layer knowledge base that draws on common designing control systems.
sense, knowledge based on experience, and restriction In this This paper proposes, in consideration of above mentioned
way a satisfactory knowledge base is constructed so that the problem, a method to construct highly flexible knowledge
reliability of control devices can be significantly enhanced. base and introduces the field test results of the fuzzy control
This paper describes how the layers of knowledge have been applied to shift scheduling system of vehicle automatic
constructed by applying the fuzzy control to the shift transmission.
scheduling of automatic transmission cars(AT vehicles), and
introduces the field test results of the scheduling system by a
fuzzy control device to verify the effectiveness of the 11. HUMAN THINKING PP.WESS
aforementioned approach.
When in the process of taking action, humans are not
I. INTRODUCTION conscious of the mathematical model based on which the
intended control is implemented. Rather, they roughly
In recent years, automobiles are designed to have higher recognize the circumstance, then make a judgement and take
performances and more sophisticated functions. As the action. The process can be broken down into four steps :
vehicle performances and functions became higher and more recognition->judgement->decision->action.(Fig.1) It is easy
sophisticated, it has become difficult to explain its function to describe this series of actions by the production rule of
without human elements because of the qualitative "IF...THEN...". Since this rule itself is regarded as the know-
advancement achieved and the amount of information how for the control obtained through experience, practical
processed in a modem automobile. In other words, today's application of the rule can be considered to be an effective
automobiles are required to have more sophisticated approach to automate the complicated operations performed
operational functions and features, in addition to the basic by humans.
function of being mere by a transportation device in order to This process reveals a strong linkage of the human action
respond to more demanding human perceptions. There is also with knowledge they process, the information obtained from
a stronger demand for qualitative improvement of controls the outside world, and object consciousness of how U> reflect
that have been considerednot so simple to materialize. the intention in their mind to the action. Thus, once the
On the other hand, for automating complicated controls following problems are solved, automatic control by a
performed manually by humans, engineers are now placing computer will begin to approximate the flexible operation by
emphasis on the fuzzy control method which controls humans : how to extract and compile the information in the
objective system by first focusing on human knowledge and brains; and how to introduce useful information into the
computer.
@78034614-7/93$03.0001993IEEE 52
The authors propose to construct a knowledge base using
three categories of knowledge : (1) knowledge of common
sense that oversees the whole; (2) knowledge of experience
that is locally effective or characteristic; and (3) restriction.
This will prevent an evasion of knowledge and make the
controller to work on the basis of common sense in the
normal situations and activate the experience when necessary,
thereby improving their reliability to a large extent.

B. Extracting knowledge

For extracting knowledge, knowledge based on


experiences can be extracted rather easily from human
subject since a human himself can consciously extract the
knowledge whenever it is needed, while common sense
Fig. 1 Human Thinking Process knowledge is difficult to extract since humans are
unconscious of the knowledge. In other words, humans are
Another problem is finding how to feed the information not normally aware of what they consider common sense. For
about the environment into the control system. This issue this reason, questionnaires and interviews method are not
relates closely to human's conscious awareness of objectives, appropriate in extracting this knowledge.
as seen in the aforementioned process.
The authors are proposing a way to extract knowledge 1 ) Abstracting common sense knowledge : Recognizing
of human subject and construct a knowledge base through the problems as described above, the authors decided, instead
analyzing the human thinking process from recognition to of extracting knowledge equivalent to common sense
action. knowledge through questionnaires and interviews method, to
extract common sense knowledge by asking, "What is the
III. DESIGNING CONTOROLLER most fundamental requirement of the object of control ?"
Consider the water tank model in Fig. 4. A valve on the tank
A. Compiling knowledge is operated to keep the surface of the water as a target level.
In this case, the most fundamental requirement of the object
Human actions are not based on the same levels of of control is to increase the volume of water when the surface
decision-making, but are believed to take place at different is below the target level and to decrease the volume when the
levels. Fig. 2 depicts the basis of this relationship. In other surface is over, or simply:
words, the human actions are divided into two categories, one (1)To open the valve when the surface is below the
is the action by reflection and another is the action based on target level
knowledge and restriction. The former is what is called (2)To close the valve when the surface is over the
common sense, intuitive, or learned through repeated target level
decision making, by which the action reflectively takes place. This knowledge is so basic that it alone cannot control the
The latter corresponds to experiential knowledge used to water level with high precision. And yet, the water level
select a better approach to achieve the intended result. cannot be controlled adequately without this knowledge,
Therefore, the former is a decision making process without though humans are not conscious of it and usually take it for
going through the intentional judgement process and the latter granted.
a decision-making accompanied by the intentional judgement
process.
- KNOWLEDGE BASE

ENW"l
, RECOGNITION
'

,,
VOLUNTARY
ACTION

.......
.........__..........

I INVOLUNTARY
ACCTK)II
~
'

-OBJECT
COMMON SENSE

UPERIENCE
ACTION '

Fig. 3 Configurationof Knowledge Base


Fig. 2 Human Actions
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In questionnaires and interviews, when asked to explain C. Inferring intention
how this water level is controlled, in most cases, only the
knowledge of how to control the level is obtainable in such a The information that are treated when humans make
characteristic situations. decision on their action can be classified into two categories:
(1)Adjust the valve opening when the water surface information obtained from external environment and
is going to overshoot or undershoot, and intention closely linked to ones objective. To replace humans
(2)make the valve opening larger if the water surface with an automatic control system, therefore, one key issue
is below the target level and is still reading. besides the acquisition of knowledge is learning how to
incorporatehuman intentions into the control system. In order
to resolve the subject, the authors have fist formed human
intent based on tlie information obtained from the human
As this example shows, knowledge obtained through action and environment, and then adopted a multistage fuzzy
questionnaires and interviews often already contains common inference by incorporating its result as input information for
sense as a basic component. That is, knowledge is normally the controller.(Fig. 5) This makes it possible to express an
extracted not as an overall knowledge but as localized antecedent of the knowledge base as a simple description and
effective knowledge. However, sets of knowledge specific to to express the control rule in short simple phrases, thus
certain circumstances can hardly control systems leading to improved maintenance and simpler settings. In
satisfactorily. The approach suggested in this paper is addition, the separate input information provides a benefit
effective in extracting the common sense of humans, that the control rule does not require rewriting even when the
precision of inference is to be upgraded.
2 ) Abstracting experimental knowledge : As already
explained, it is quite easy to extract knowledge that D. Overall a rchitectii re
corresponds to experience through questionnaires and
interviews. In the water tank model, humans often open or As a result of the above study, the fuzzy control
close the valve with the f m intention of bringing the water system has been composed as an overall architecture as
level to a particular level. Humans would promptly give the shown in Fig. 6, in which the knowledge base is divided into
following knowledge when asked in a questionnaire or common sense, experience, and restriction for assessment,
interviews, how to control the water level. Namely, if the and the rules of common sense and experience are referred to
level is below the target but is approaching it, they will: as fuzzy inference. The restriction is written as an algorithm
(1)Close the valve if the water surface is rising and
approaching with rapid speed to the target level,
(2)close the valve slightly if the water surface is rising
slowly to the target level. INFERENCE INTENT
INPUT
ENGINE I INFERENCE
ENGINE11 *OUTPUT

In comparison with the common knowledge described


above, this knowledge is effective and characteristic in an
extremely limited situation. Because of its characmistics, the Fig. 5 Multistage Inference
knowledge can remain with the human consciousness and can
easily be extracted as well.
KNOWLEDGE BASE11 - - I
i
I
i

-i
ACTUAL LEVEL

INPUT

I WATERLEAKOUT

Fig. 4 Water Tank Model Fig. 6 Overall Architecture


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to monitor fuzzy inference output because it is an item that Input block --- This block receives six input variables ---
cannot be compromised. Given that the input data contains vehicle speed, throttle opening, engine speed, intake manifold
both the intention and environmental information, a module pressure, shift positions and brake signals -- and calculates
is added to infer the intention. This architecture seems to information necessary for controlling the shifting schedule by
have potential for a wide range of applications. This paper performing pre-processing including such statistical
adopts the shift scheduling system for AT vehicles to verify processing as averaging and filtering calculations.
the appropriatenessof an overall architecture of the system. Inference block --- This block can be divided into two
blocks; intentional inference block and shift position
IV. FUZZY AT SHIFT SCHEDULING SYSTEM inference block. The intentional inference block decides how
much the driver intends to slow down through fuzzy inference
A. ConventionalAT sh@ scheduling method using the information from the input block and sets of rules
based on the knowledge base. The shift position inference
As shown in Fig. 7, shift scheduling is usually based on block determines desirable shift positions through fuzzy
two parameters, vehicle speed and throttle opening. Presently, inference using the information from the input block, results
microprocessors are increasingly used to determine the shift of the intentional inference obtained and sets of rules based
scheduling. In some of the shifting scheduling, command on the knowledge base.
values retrieved from gear shift mapping are automatically Knowledge base --- This block is composed of two sets of
adjusted and corrected in detail. knowledge; one used for intentional inference and another
B. Fuzzy AT ship scheduling system used for shift scheduling. In the former, the relationship of the
driver's intention to slow down and status of the vehicle is
I ) Block composition : Fig. 8 shows a fuzzy AT shift stored as a proposition of the "IF...THEN..." statements. In
scheduling system that consists of an input block, an the latter, the common sense mentioned earlier and driver's
inference block, a knowledge base and an output block. control expertise represented as experience are stored as a
number of propositions made using "IF.. .THEN.. ."
statements, where the ambiguity of recognition is expressed
by fuzzy sets.
Output block --- This block performs engine over-rev
checking of a shift position which is inferred by the inference
block and decides the eventual shift position before issuing a
command to the actuator. Known restrictions in the human
knowledge are thereby considered.

2 ) Knowledge base
21-1 Knowledge base for shifr scheduling : As explained
before, the knowledge for the shift scheduling consists of
common sense and experience. For the common sense, it
would be most appropriate to adopt the most fundamental
characteristic required by the object to be controlled. The
authors consider the following two pints as the most
essential requirements for shift scheduling of automatic
transmissions.
Fig. 7 Gear Shift Map (1) Selection of shifting gears according to the vehicle
speed.
(2) Shiftings in accordance with the vehicle speeds are
KNOWLEDGE BASE
variable in accordance with the throttle opening.
These points can be expressed in the form of
"IF...THEN..."statements as follows:
(1) If the vehicle speed is high, then use a higher gear, and
if the vehicle speed is low, then use a lower gear.
(2) If the throttle opening is large, then use a lower gear,
and if the throule opening is small, then use a higher
fF=.
These two sets of knowledge have been extracted through
a study of characteristics that AT vehicles should have.
INFERENCE BLOCK Together they form an overall knowledge base that works in
all driving conditions and agrees with human instinct.
Experiences, under special circumstance where common
Fig. 8 Fuzzy AT Shift Scheduling System
sense could not be utilized, are responsible for correcting the
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output power produced by common sense. During uphill
driving, for an example, a common sense of "shifting into a (ffdiv)
higher gear as the vehicle accelerates" is not necessary where a:Acc Pedal operation
8:Break Pedal operation
applicable. In such a case, the driver's experience leads him to
use a lower gear. Experience is the basis of this decision. n
(*,*,KC)
A
y:Sbte of Vehicle speed
where *:Option
A list of the concrete knowledge base in the AT shift
scheduling system and its membership functions are (OFF,ON,DEC)

described in Fig. 9.

2)-2 Knowledge base for intentional inference: Human


intentions can be determined only through their actions, since
there is no sensor which can read intentions. To predict the OTHERS
driver's intention, it is necessary therefore to clarify the
situation (i.e., what action he takes)in which he has an
intention to slow down or decides not to slow down. For this
reason, the authors created a state transition diagram, Fig. 10
which shows, for an example, that the state changes from the
non-existence to the existence of the intention to decrease Fig. 10 State TransitionDiagram
speed when the throttle is closed, the braking pedal is pressed
and the vehicle slows down(mow A). It is not, however, to make the knowledge base to infer the intention to decrease
clear from this diagram whether the intention intensifies even speed are described. It is basically composed of the following
when the pedal is released(arrow B). On the basis of this two rules:
diagram, the relationship between these actions and changing (1) Intensifies the intent to decrease the speed when the
direction of the intention with the "IF...THEN..." statements throttle is closed, the braking pedal is pressed down
and the vehicle slows down, and
(2) weakens when the throttle is opened.
In actuality, rules have been written for each of the
different situations in which a vehicle is used to better
estimate the driver's intention. A list of concrete knowledge
base and membership functions are described in the
following figure.
3. IF r " T IS LOW AN0 (SEEO IS WGHI I I"- "1

EXPEWENCE
7.IF (RESISI IS ffi) AM)
(lliROT IS LOW ANLI
lspaD IS NOT VERY LOW1 AND
2 IF 0DROP IS DECELERPTKM) AN0
(MROT IS aOSqAM)
ylLFISFAlRSKAU.)AND
(RESIST IS NOT W A N D
(spm, 6 LOW
TtN (t0.03)

Fig. 9 "IF...THEN..." Rules and Fuzzy Sets(SH1FT POSITION) Fig. 11 "IF...THEN ..."Rules and Fuzzy Sets (INTENTION)
56
V. FIELD TEST RESULTS Table I Fuel Consumption

Field tests on the fuzzy shift scheduling system were


conducted on mountainousroads and city streets.

A.Mountainous road test


1 DRIVE 1 4.43km'e
(10.42MPG)
1
A mountain road in California was selected as a typical
mountainousroad and the fuzzy control system (FUZZY) was L I I

compared with a conventional automatic drive system


(DRIVE).
2 ) Downhill driving : Fig. 14 shows the downhill driving
1 ) Uphill driving : Fig. 12 shows the uphill driving performances of the two systems, while Fig. 15 shows the
performances of the two systems, while Fig. 13 shows the frequencies of shifting and the number of braking. These
frequenciesof the shifts used and the number of gear changes. figures indicate that the fourth gear is almost always
As the figures indicate, when the driver releases the throttle of maintained without the effective application of engine
the conventional system during the uphill driving, the braking under the conventional system, while the fuzzy
transmission unintentionally shift up creating power system makes proper down shiftings as if it is responding to
insufficiency which in turn generates shift-down. On the other the driver's intention to decrease the vehicle speed.
hand, the fuzzy system under the same circumstance will hold Subsequently, the gear is held at the third to apply engine
the gear appropriately at the third gear, eliminating busy braking, thereby substantially improving the driving stability.
shiftings and improvingdriveability.
Table I compares the fuel consumptionof the two systems
to further show the advantage of the fuzzy control system, DRIVE
which seems to be the result of the smaller slip loss in the BRAKE
torque converter arising from the effective utilization of lower
gear during uphill driving.

otl I
ioort I

SPEED 50
!Km/h)
0
1 2 3 4 Fig. 14 Comparisonof Fuzzy and D-Range I11 (DOWNHILL DRIVING)
TIME (min.)

Fig. 12 Comparisonof Fuzzy and D-Range I (UPHILL DRIVING)

FREQUENCY OF SHIFT NUMBER OF BRAKING


FREQUENCY OF SHIFT NUMBER OF GEAR CHANGE
0 2 0 4 0 6 O B o ~ ) 0 20 40
0 20 40 60 80 loo(%) 0 20 LO
2nd
DRIVE

MO
FUZZY

Fig. 13 Comparison of Fuzzy and D-Range I1 (UPHILL DRIVING)


Fig. 15 Comparisonof Fuzzy and D-Range IV (DOWNHILL DRIVING)
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B. City street test On the basis of this concept, the authors have developed a
system to determine shift scheduling of an automatic
To re-create typical city street conditions, the authors transmission.
selected a road in the suburbs of Tokyo and compared the Field tests have proved that the developed system can
driving performance of the fuzzy control system with that of realize a shift scheduling which satisfactorily reflects human
the conventional AT system. On city streets where there are experiences and intentions. In uphill and downhill driving in
no extreme slopes, the fuzzy control system makes particular, the fuzzy system, in comparison with the map
scheduling, which relies on common sense in the knowledge method employed by the conventional AT system, shows a
base, in large part in the same way as the conventional significant improvement in the driveability particularly in
system. This means that the proposed system requires the such areas as riding comfort and firm driving feeling.
driver to conduct mostly the same throttle pedal operations as In conclusion, this fuzzy control system was actually
those conducted under the conventional system. applied to the production model, 3.2-liter V-6 engine
introduced in September of 1992 and has received excellent
VI. CONCLUSION evaluations in the Japanese market.

Since human behavior can be assessed as a three- REFERENCES


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Acceleration Pedal Speed ("")

Fig. 16 Accelerator Operation for City Driving

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